Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 49

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 49
Publication Date: May 1997

The first two parts of “Endgame” were fairly solid comic books, doing a good job of balancing emotion, action, and intrigue. The stakes had been steadily rising in the book for a while, all leading up to this four part story arc with the highest stakes yet. Princess Sally is dead! Sonic the Hedgehog is wrongfully accused! Robotnik is in Knothole! Antoine and Bunnie are captured! Drago just smacked his girlfriend in the mouth! In the third volume, Ken Penders would partner with Mike Gallagher, a writer that usually handles goofier stories, though has done well outside his comfort zone before. I’m not sure if Gallagher’s influence is to blame or if Ken’s plot just rolled over itself, but issue 49 is the weakest part of the arc thus far.

Picking up where we left off, Sonic is making a dramatic dive over a waterfall. Too weak to perform his Figure 8 Maneuver and hover to safety, he instead tries another ridiculous plan. He pulls dirt out of his sneakers, tosses it into the air, and uses it as a bridge to run to safety. Afterwards, St. John and his men take the long way around to catch up with him. Using a previously undisclosed ability, Sonic summons Dulcy, who carries him to the Floating Island for some reason. Sonic is unaware that St. John is tracking him though and the skunk ambushes him as soon as he arrives. Meanwhile, Robotnik asserts his control over Knothole while Antoine and Bunnie get acquainted with their prison cells in Downunda.

You’ll notice that plot description has the writers’ pulling a lot of crazy events out of their asses. Since this is a book starring cartoon animals, we’re willing to suspend disbelief for a while. It’s why Vector blowing out a forest fire with his headphones didn’t faze me. However, Sonic’s dramatic escape here really pushes into the ridiculous. I know the hedgehog is fast but him taking off his shoes, yanking a handful of mud out, tossing it into the air, and using his speed to run across it… All within the seconds it would take him to fall? Come on. That’s not the last startling development yanked out of thin air. A few pages later, Sonic summons Dulcy with a whistle that only dragons can hear, which he performs by vibrating his lungs at super-sonic speed. Dulcy immediately recognizes Sonic didn’t murder Sally because dragons can innately sense the truth. Gee, you’d think either of these abilities would’ve come up before hand at some point.

These shenanigans continues elsewhere in the book. In Knothole, Robotnik reveals that the King Max that invited him in with open arms is an Auto-Automaton, surprising absolutely none of the readers. Next, we learn that the real King Acorn has been kept in a secret location. Robotnik captured Dr. Quack’s family and had been blackmailing him into going along with this scheme. I guess that makes the duck the traitor, doesn’t it? Next come the reveal about who actually murdered Princess Sally. Drago coerces Hershey into cutting the rope while wearing a full-body Sonic suit. She thought she was murdering Snively because… dun dun DUN DUN! …the lens in the mask make everyone look like Snively. This makes Hershey look incredibly stupid, as you’d think she would have asked why she had to wear a Sonic costume for this mission in the first place. It’s some incredibly awkward, circular plotting and does the story a disadvantage.

Another problem arises in how over the map this comic is. Our emotions lie with Sonic’s escape and St. John pursuing him. That’s what really matters. Perhaps in hopes of making the story arc more epic, the script stretches to include other characters. Antoine and Bunnie are relocated to Downunda within minutes, it seems. There, they are thrown in a prison cell with Walt Wallaby and Barby Koala, of the Downunda Freedom Fighters. There’s actually some cute dialogue here between Antoine and Bunnie. It’s also nice to see the underutilized Walt and Barby again.

 
However, the story stomps all over this by bluntly reintroducing Crocbot. Instead of focusing on what’s important, the plot pauses for an entire page so Crocbot can explain how he survived his drop into the crater at the end of the “Tails” mini-series. (Mostly, this plot development seems to have happened so that Crocbot in the comic would more closely resemble how Spaz drew him on the covers of that mini-series.) Meanwhile, Sonic has Dulcy take him to the Floating Island for… Some reason? Upon landing, he immediately gets into a scrap with Knuckles. You’d think the hedgehog would realize slightly more important things are going on.

The book also continues to slide into darker territory here. We see Drago actually smack Hershey in the mouth, on-page this time. Robotnik directly threatens to murder everyone in Knothole, after exploding the robotic King Acorn. While in Downunda, Crocbot boasts about torturing the captured Downunda Freedom Fighters for his own sadistic amusement. Murder, blackmail, betrayal, death threats, torture… Gee, this shit got heavy. I’m not actually complaining, as I’m one of those assholes who have always wanted to see the book handle darker material. Yet, considering just four issues ago we had a wacky story about a caveman and gorillas, it’s a bit of a tonal whiplash.

Though the plot here is a bit of a mess, the book does have a saving grace. Sam Maxwell, last seen in the “Battle Royal” one-shot, contributes pencils again. Maxwell’s work is less abstract and experimental then what we saw in that book. The characters are a little more solid though no less expressive. What he maintains is an incredible sense of energy. Say what you will about the halting script but the drawings on the page still seem to move. Maxwell is also all for staging pages in dramatic manners. His impressive angle, including close-ups and turns, greatly help the book out.

With a mountain of absurd plot twist and a story bending in too many directions, “Endgame” stumbles a bit in its third chapter. Will things even out in time for the conclusion? I guess we’ll find out next time on “Hedgehogs Can’t Swim!” [6/10]