Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 99

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 99
Publication Date: July 1999

The sad state of affairs for Archie’s “Sonic” series continue as the comic zooms towards its biggest landmark. In issue 99, business continues as usual. Sonic and Tails return from their adventures – Sonic battling Shadow, Tails battling Knuckles – to discover more chaos in Knothole. Kodos is still insane and the Sword of Acorn is still out of reach. But more personal issues are concerning Sally, Mina, and Elias.

In the past, I’ve praised Karl Bollers’ ability to balance emotional subplots with big action. Now, the emotional subplots have taken over the book. By issue 99, Archie’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” was earning its reputation as a “furry soap opera.” Look at all the different story lines that are piling up. There’s still this business of the missing Sword of Acorn, which I’m officially sick of. Kodos is still rampaging around like a crazy person, his madness officially diagnosed as a symptom of Robotropolis born toxins. Uma Arachnis stumbles back into the plot at the end, the reader struggling to care. Meanwhile, Nate Morgan is shocked to hear that Overlanders are in Robotropolis. I can’t remember where Karl is going with this idea. Moreover, I don’t really care.

The things I do care about are handled just as clumsily. Issue 99 begins with a reasonably amusing moment. Sonic and Tails sneak back into his hut, in the middle of the night, to be discovered by the hedgehog’s robotic parents. It’s a scene familiar to teenage fiction but made amusing by the context of a furry action/adventure series. Sadly, Jules and Bernie’s concerns for the boys are reduced to a few panels. Elias’ continued doubts about being a monarch – which have been going on for so long that he’s starting to sound whiny – similarly only receive a few stray thought bubbles. Antoine’s continued concerns about his father being a robotocized slave is shoved into the very back of the issue, a subplot that is totally ignored until the writer seemingly remembered it existed. There’s too much happening in the book right now. Karl can’t juggle it, much less give these ideas the emotional resonance they’re due.

The plot line suffering the most from this approach is the growing Sonic/Sally/Mina love triangle. Karl has totally depowered Sally by this point. The once proud leader of the Freedom Fighters is now reduced to pining for her missing friends. Her attempt to catch Sonic’s attention – dressing up like a dancing girl – doesn’t help the impression that Karl was chickifying the book’s best female character.

This builds up to the issue’s dumbest moment. After another super speed training session, Mina plants a smooch on Sonic. Sally just happens to walk by exactly as this happens. Instead of waiting around for an explanation, Sally immediately flees. If she had stayed, she would’ve realized that Mina’s kiss was meant as a platonic gesture… And Sonic didn’t much approve of it either. It could’ve been a sweet moment, Sonic forced to let the fan girl down easily. Or Sonic and Sally having a meeting of hearts when they both need it the most. Instead, the Idiot Plot rolls on, characters forced into melodramatic situations due to the plot’s machinations.

The back-up story is not fairing it any better. Knuckles teleports back to the Floating Island, which is still unpopulated. There, Grandpa Hawking’s force ghost appears and drops some vague hints about something or other. Meanwhile, the Dark Legion has been watching the echidna’s rampage, only dully concerned by his new powers. At this point, Knuckles realizes he can just teleport aboard the Legion’s Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which he probably should’ve done six issues ago.

I’ve been complaining nonstop about Penders’ annoying resistance to getting back to the Floating Island. Now, Knuckles finally gets his ass back home just for Ken to derail shit further. Instead of having the echidna directly address his enemies, he gets another mysticism-tinged lecture from another dead grandfather. Hawking has “evolved” passed his physical body and haunts the young Guardian as a ghost. But even in death, the Brotherhood is averse to straight fucking answer. Knuckles sees visions of the past, Hawking explains he’s dead, and then vanishes. Seriously, fuck this mystic mumble-jumbo.

Ken has also returned to draw his favorite echidna’s adventures. He’s not using stock photographs as backgrounds any more but that’s hardly an improvement. His facial expressions are dull and flat, when they aren’t bordering on ugly. He still draws Knuckles as a lumpy collection of shapes. But Lien-Da and Dimitri get the worst of it, looking especially off-model. Ken’s weak illustrations are paired with weirdly corny or seriously stiff dialogue. “By the Chaos Emerald!” “Let me go, you brainless drone!” “She being hassled by some hooded monkeys!” “Tough cookies, Knux!” “The cursed son of Locke?” “Take a guess – and the first two don’t count!” Who talks like this?

Ron Lim draws the cover story, by the way. The opening editor’s box proclaims him the new regular penciler. Which, I’m sure you know, I’m super excited about. In all seriousness, Lim’s drawings are as noodly, flat, and unappealing as ever. Both of Archie’s head writers are loosing ground to their worst tendencies. Karl to overdone melodrama and uninspired plotting, Ken to mystic bullshit and plots that spin endlessly before reaching a point. Sigh. [4/10]