Sonic the Hedeghog: Issue 20

 
Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 20
Publication Date: December 1994

Issue 20 of Archie’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” series holds a special place in my heart. I loved this issue as a kid. A few of my childhood issues are missing their covers simply because I didn’t take the best care of my comics when I was really young. Issue 20 is in tatters because I couldn’t stop reading it. I can recall one time when my older sister, in order to annoy and upset me, threw this comic behind the couch. I don’t know why Issue 20 resonated with me so much. I’ll attempt to parse out why below. This comic isn’t responsible for fanning my love of Sonic but it definitely kept the flames going.

  
Sonic and Sally rush into a Robotropolis factory – in a way not totally dissimilar to SatAM’s opening sequence – in order to destroy the doctor’s new Anti-Matter Machine. The machine ends up being a ruse. The metal door slams shut behind Sally, trapping Sonic inside. When he applies the bomb to the device, he thinks he has plenty of time to escape. He doesn’t. The bomb explodes, the factory is destroyed, and Sonic seemingly goes with it. The Freedom Fighters can’t mourn for too long. In their grief, they plot a suicide mission to take down Robotnik. Sonic, however, isn’t dead. The Anti-Matter device has only made him non-corporal and invisible. Will he be able to return to the land of the living before his friends seal their own fates?
 

“That’s the Spirit” isn’t without the silly excesses common to this era of Sonic. The memorial statue carved for Sonic is very comical looking. In order to prove to himself that he’s not dead, Sonic jumps on a very confused moose’s back. While still ghost-like, Sonic haunts Robotnik, commanding the dictator to get a hairpiece and loose weight, a gag the comic follows through on. However, the story is surprisingly serious for something coming from the pen of Angelo DeCesare. The Freedom Fighters each mourn for Sonic in their own ways. Sally alternates between tears and anger. Antoine goes into muted shock. Tails refuses to believe that his idol is dead… Until Sonic discovers a note the fox left for him, that outright confirms that Tails’ knows he has passed. It’s all pretty heavy stuff for what was basically still a kid’s comic at the time.

Maybe that’s why this issue resonated with me so much. It’s very rare that children’s media deals with death. It’s a topic that most adults don’t want to share with kids. However, as a young person, I was morbidly fascinated with death. I used to consider the details of my own funeral constantly. The death of bad guys in Disney cartoons and action movies were always the parts of movies I paid the most attention too. I have no doubt that this morbid interest is why I would become such a horror movie nut later in life. To see Sonic the Hedgehog flirt with death, to see his friends mourn, to see how they move on without him… It was powerful stuff for me, at the time.

 
For the most part, the story holds up surprisingly well. For it’s first half, it’s very focused on the effect Sonic’s death has on his friends and enemies. As the climax of the story approaches, the tale inevitably gets sillier. Robotnik plans to scoop up Sonic and his friends with a bird-shaped robot, for some reason. The way this plan is thwarted, with Sonic taunting the villain from the afterlife, is pretty silly. The effects of the Anti-Matter device wear off in time, which definitely drains some of the tension from the story. Dave Manak’s art is also very board and loose. Unlike many of the other Sonic artists, Manak’s stuff never really evolved.

Number 20 remains a very well-rounded issue. The back-up story is also strongly recommended. “Deadliest of the Species: Prologue” is exactly that, a prologue to the Princess Sally mini-series that would be debuting soon afterwards. Yes, kids, Princess Sally was once popular enough for Archie to greenlight a mini-series starring her. What’s notable about “Prologue” is how there’s very little dialogue for its first few pages. In some of Art Mawhinney’s most moody and distinctive artwork, we see Sally sneak into a Robotnik compound, destroy a SWATBot, hack a computer, and activate the building’s self-destruct command. (This seems to draw attention to a fact frequently overlooked: The Freedom Fighters are basically terrorists. Trade out the robots for people and see how obvious that becomes.) The countdown to the explosion ticks under the bottom of the panels, giving a great idea of tension. Sally is met by Geoffrey St. John, a character equal parts intriguing and infuriating. And it ends on a hell of a cliffhanger too, Sally being targeted by a surviving SWATBot.

Though only the start of a larger story, the prologue of “Deadliest of the Species” is still pretty great, showing how dramatic and impressive this series could be when working in top form. The artwork is wonderful and Penders’ writing is relatively unobtrusive. He definitely should have done more stories with little-to-no dialogue.

Issue 20 is a nostalgic favorite that holds up pretty well. I’m happy to say this is one of my favorite issues of the entire run. [9/10]