Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 3

 

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 3
Publication Date: July 1993

Over its surprisingly long life-span, Archie’s “Sonic” comic has a cast of characters measuring in the hundreds. There are so many critters running around the universe that even I, a huge fucking nerd that’s been reading this series since I was seven, can’t name some of them. Despite what it would become, the comic initially had a small cast. It didn’t even have all the characters from the cartoon show it was ostensibly adapting. Bunnie Rabbot, the widely beloved cyborg rabbit, wouldn’t appear until issue three of the on-going series. Though relatively silly, the issue continues the comic’s slow – really slow – evolution into something worthwhile.

Despite introducing a major character, issue three does not open with that story. Because Michael Gallagher had his damn priorities straight, this one opens with a goofy, pointless story called “The Bomb Bugs Me.” Rotor has been spying on Robotnik for a while, which you think would’ve come up by now. Anyway, he overhears Robotnik saying he has “the bomb.” Since apparently, the Freedom Fighters are familiar with both nuclear weapons and 20th century slang for them, they immediately assuming the robotic tyrant is preparing a nuclear arsenal. Anyway, it’s dumb.

The first story is devoted solely to goofy slapstick antics. The Freedom Fighters seemingly march into Robotropolis, protesting with signs like a bunch of filthy furry hippies. This turns out to be a dumb gag. The next dumb gag has Rotor disguising himself as Robotnik, Robotnik disguising himself as Rotor, and an escalating series of goofy reveals. Though really no less a dumb gag then you’ve come to expect, there’s a certain vaudevillian lunacy to this sequence that mildly amuses me. It all leads up to the biggest dumb reveal: Turns out “the bomb” is a bug bomb. Oh, what a hilarious misunderstanding. Afterwards, there’s a series of one-page gag strips, the most amusing of which comments on Princess Sally’s changing hair color. And she’s not even a redhead yet!

Anyway, on to the important shit. In the second story, Sonic and Rotor head off to stop Robotnik’s incursion into the “Southern Sector” of Mobius. (Ten thousand years later, Ian Flynn would retcon this region of the world as the Southern Baronies, which is kind of like the Antebellum South existing on Mobius for some reason, minus all the slavery.) While there, Sonic rescues a rabbit in the process of being robotocized. She immediately becomes a valued member of the team, her robotic limbs granting her super strength.

 

So issue three belatedly introduces Bunnie Rabbot, one of those most beloved members of the SatAM cast, into the comics' continuity. There are upsides and downsides to this. Firstly, the cartoon show never gave Bunnie a definitive origin, her robotic limbs going unexplained. The comic nicely provides one, showing that Sonic rescued her as she was half-way through a mobile roboticizer. (In his landmark fanfiction, "Sonic Sketchy," Sean Catlett rightly points out that this would likely be a terrifying and incredible painful experience. The comic and cartoon brush over that.) It’s a succinct way to introduce the character and quickly explains her immediate allegiance to the Freedom Fighters. It also provides the story with a fairly clever action beat, when Bunnie uses her super-strength to easily invert the giant Burrow-Bot that attacks Freedom HQ. The way that’s drawn, with the machine circling in the middle of the panels, confused, actually got a chuckle out of me.

 
However, the inevitable downside comes when the comic applies its goofball comedic tone to the new character. Since Bunnie is from the South, she’s immediately characterized as a cornpone redneck. Granted, SatAM started that, since the late, great Christine Cavanaugh voiced Bunnie with a cutesy Southern accent. But the comic takes it way too far. Bunnie makes repeated references to wanting to be a hair dresser. Really? I mean, really? Jesus. Her accent is also written in a way that’s sometimes tricky to follow. “I” is written as “Ah,” “sugar” as “sugah.” The aspiration of styling hair would fade over the years but we’d all just have to get used to the accent. The story also needlessly suggest a romantic attraction between Sonic and Bunnie, which thankfully would rarely be mentioned again.

So issue three is wildly uneven. The first story is the disposable while the second story features some interesting or even intelligent choices right alongside dumb or annoying ones. David Manak’s artwork continues to be goofy and colorful, if overly loose and cartoony at times. It’s not all bad. It’s not all exactly good either. [5/10]