Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 70

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 70
Publication Date: February 1999

Issue 69 of Archie’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” ended on a cliffhanger. Dear readers, “Hedgehogs Can’t Swim” is not an exact science. If you haven’t noticed already, I write these blog entries long before they’re actually published. Sometimes, because of real life circumstances, these reviews are written weeks or even months apart. So please excuse me if I totally forgot about the cliffhanger the previous issue ended on.

For those that forgot, like me, last time ended with Snively’s gang of prison escapees kidnapping Nate Morgan. The bad guys then tossed a grenade into the juice joint where Sonic and the gang where hanging out. Issue 70 begins with a big ass explosion. But don’t worry. Sonic threw the cockadoodie grenade into the air, saving his friends and creating a new skylight for the bar owners. Afterwards, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters request permission from the King to track the villains’ down. They’re denied and the Royal Secret Service is sent in their steed. Not that this stops Sonic, who goes ahead on in the Winged Victory and meets Geoffrey St. John at Snively’s island hide-out. After the hedgehog and the skunk have their required scuffle, they get down to saving the day.

“saving nate morgan,” which lacks capital letters for some reason, is another fine Karl Bollers story exploring Sonic’s role in a world without Robotnik. After Nate’s kidnapping, Sonic, Sally, and the other Freedom Fighters assume they will get to play hero and rescue their new friend. King Acorn slaps that option down. The Kingdom of Acorn is no longer at war. The freedom has been won. There’s no need to fight for it anymore. Sonic and his friends were essentially child soldiers but now the adults are back in town. Not only does this provide a reason for St. John’s Secret Service to exist, it also puts Sonic in an interesting position. Because Sonic is Sonic, he goes ahead on the mission anyway. That’s certainly a braver option than the hedgehog jumping on a plane and leaving town, like he did last time his role as hero felt challenged.

I wish the other Freedom Fighters had a little more to do in this story. However, “Saving Nate Morgan’ is more about establishing some new characters. Sonic continues to take the Mobians’ racism/speciesism? against Overlanders, when directed at Nate Morgan anyway, personally. While Morgan has shown some growth recently, he’s nothing more than a captive in this story. His sole interesting moment comes when verbally sparing with Snively and Kodos.

Sonic isn’t the only person who subverts the King’s authority by going ahead without permission. Prince Elias stowaways, dramatically revealing himself at a key moment. Despite what the action packed cover implies, with its image of Elias leaping around with those weird glaive things, Elias doesn’t actually do anything more than reveal himself. That character has yet to find his calling.

Aside from that, “Saving Nate Morgan” is a pretty good action story too. Sonic and Geoffrey’s rivalry may be old news but at least they’re not fighting over Sally again. This time, Geoffrey’s virulent racism against Overlanders, and Nate Morgan specifically, pisses Sonic off. Afterwards, the heroes charge Kodos’ stronghold. A clever plan has Sonic paralyzing the warlord by running around his legs really fast, presumably drawing the blood into his feet with the inertia. Another cute moment, which is easy to miss, has Hershey beating the shit out of Drago again. Any story that has the heroes traveling to an obscure island and exploring an abandoned building will recall old timey pulp serials. And that’s a comparison that I always enjoy making.

In its final pages, the story takes an odd turn. Another one of orbiting satellites – you know, the ones controlled by someone who totally isn’t Robotnik – activates a hidden weapon. A giant, mutated squid explodes out from under the ground. Aside from being fucking random, this element also totally changes the direction of the story. Suddenly, some other problem emerges and distracts everyone. (It also allows the Fearsome Foursome to escape, leaving them available for future stories.) Bomb leaps into action and creates an explosion big enough to destroy the squid but not harm anyone else. That, disappointingly, is the only time a team member besides Sonic shows off a special skills. Wombat Stu, Valdez, and Heavy contribute nothing to this story. Which might as well be a problem with page space as anything else.

The story isn’t perfect, with the kind of minor narrative problems you just get used to reading in this book. However, it taps some interesting aspects of Sonic’s personality, features some fun action, and has another killer round-up of Steven Butler artwork. I’ll take it!

Issue 70 also features a bizarre back-up story. To the audience, as seemingly no one else is listening, Sonic relates a reoccurring nightmare he keeps having. While flying over Sandblast City, Sonic’s bi-plane disappears and he heads for the mouth of his own statue. Once inside, he discovers a world straight out of Charlie Kaufman: His face is on every structure. Turns out, this dream land is occupied with hardcore Sonic fans who constantly argue about the minutia of his adventures.

“Statue of Limitations” has a valid starting point. What if Sonic’s status as a hero heavily weighted on his mind? There’s actually some okay dialogue at the end, where Sonic shares his doubts with Tails. However, any honest emotion the story has seems to be lost behind a wave of cheesy jokes. And not the usual cheesy jokes. The Sonic scholars in the dream debate Sonic and Sally’s romance and whether or not Sally should have stayed dead after “Endgame.” The door to the building where the scholars dwell is marked “Sonic Adventure Archives.” At the end of the story, Sonic suggests that he’s okay being gray. The hedgehog is referring to his morality but the story seems to be referring to black-and-white reprints.

In other words, “Statue of Limitations” is a tongue and cheek announcement for Sonic’s old adventures being printed in gray scale paperbacks. Only that didn’t actually happen until 2011, with color reprints proceeding them in 2006. Chris Allen’s pencils are decent, expressive and cartoony, but the story itself is a bit of a head scratcher.

A solid if slightly unsatisfying cover story and a very strange back-up story? Yep, sounds like a typical issue of Archie’s “Sonic” to me. And I mean that in the best way. [7/10]