Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 85

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 85
Publication Date: June 2000

Archie’s “Sonic Adventure” adaptation finally came to an end in April of 2000. However, for some reason, Karl Bollers didn’t immediately get the Freedom Fighters back to Knothole. Instead, it would be another three issues before the heroes return to their home base. Why Bollers made this decision, I can’t say. However, the cynic in me suggests that this was a further symptom of the creative team behind the comic having no idea what to do with the series following Sega’s revamp of Sonic’s world.

After successfully defeating Perfect Chaos and saving Station Square, the Freedom Fighters are ready to go home. At the last minutes, the citizens of the city decide to throw a party in honor of the heroes. This celebration is interrupted when Robotnik sends a new robot to attack. Silver Sonic Mk. II has a real attitude and is specifically designed to destroy Sonic. The two hedgehogs, one fleshy, one mechanical, are soon fighting all throughout the city.

Introducing a new version of Silver Sonic, whose original incarnation debuted back in the “Sonic Quest’ mini-series, struck me as an odd decision. There’s nothing Silver Sonic II does that Mecha Sonic or any number of Badniks couldn’t have accomplished. Robotnik makes a big deal out of the new creation, hyping him up as some ultimate weapon. Yet he has no special abilities, armor, weapons, or attributes that make him more intimidating then the doctor’s previous faux-Sonics.

The only thing new about Silver Sonic II is the robot’s bizarre personality. For some reason, the machine mimics Sonic’s speech patterns. Which means he mostly talks in dated surfer slang. The robot drops lines like “Way past,” “Hasta la vista, meestah,” “As if!,”  “Bring it on!,” “Bogus!,” and various puns. It’s a really weird choice but does distinguish Silver Sonic from the previous robotic copies.

As for the actual fight, it’s not much to write about. Silver Sonic deploys Sonic-seeking missiles, drops a building on Sonic, and throws a shoe at Tails’ head. That’s about it. Sonic swiftly avoids or survives each technique, the robot showing no real threat to the hedgehog. The fight concludes in an anti-climatic fashion, with Sonic simply cutting off his double’s head with a simple buzz saw dash. If Robotnik intended Silver Sonic to just be a distraction, that might explain the mediocre fight. However, the dictator clearly hoped his latest machine would successfully destroy his opponent. This was either poor planning on the behalf of the villain or the writer.

As generally useless as issue 85’s cover story is, Karl Bollers does attempt to insert some emotional stakes into this pointless tale. Silver Sonic does occasionally target Sonic’s friend. Big the Cat – who Sonic really has no reason to care about but let’s go with it – gets tossed by the mechanical adversary. Most prominently, Tails gets conked on the head. This enrages Sonic enough that he takes out the baddie with one hit. The Freedom Fighters float around the edge of the story, mostly here to deliver exposition. On one hand, this doesn’t live up to the character’s potential. On the other hand, at least they’re still in the book.

Another attribute makes me dislike issue 85 even more. Ron Lim, my archenemy, returns from the “Sonic Adventure” special. His artwork is hugely unappealing. The character’s heads are way too angular. Lim’s proportions are all wrong, drawing everyone with huge heads and limbs. (The hugeness of which, by the way, varies from panel to panel.) His expressions are laughably bad and his action is fairly stiff. However, I’ll give the guy this much. The first two panels on the second page, devoting to showing the devastation Station Square has suffered, are striking. Seems like Lim does okay when there are no characters to draw.

Continuing my theory that issue 83 was quickly thrown together to fulfill a deadline, the story ends at a really random point. Flying towards Knothole, the Freedom Fighter Special falls out of the sky. After the plane crashes, Nate Morgan deduces that the mechanical failure was the result of sabotage. If this plot point goes anywhere, I can’t remember. Either way, it’s a real weird place to end the story at. There’s also a dumb sequence, that shows Silver Sonic has been reprogrammed to protect Station Square. Which basically says that this entire story was put together so Bollers would never have to visit Station Square again. That I understand but surely there was a better to do it.

The back-up story focuses on Rotor the Walrus, a character that has been neglected for a while. “Home & Back” picks up a plot point that’s been dangling for a while… Sort of. Rotor heads back to the Arctic to check on his family, who were last seen drifting on an iceberg, brainwashed and helpless. Rotor is happy to discover they’re okay, broken of their mind control at some point. That is until he wakes up one morning, to see them under Robotnik’s control again. Rotor barely escapes in his bathysphere, the Arctic Freedom Fighters helping him out before its too late.

“Home & Back” is a step forward and a step back. On one hand, Rotor’s imperiled family is a story line the book abandoned some time ago. So it’s nice that it finally got back to it. On the other hand, “Home & Back” revisits these characters just to put them back in stasis. After seeing their personalities briefly restore, Rotor’s family go back to being mindless zombies. The back-up story is told incredibly awkwardly, playing out entirely in flashbacks. The Arctic Freedom Fighters essentially appear as a deus ex machine, showing up just to rescue Rotor at the end. An entity calling itself Diamond Rose Studios handles the artwork. The pencils are actually okay, giving the walrus a nice pudgy appearance and bringing a lot of emotion to the faces. The colors, however, are hideously garish.

So issue 85 continues to have the book struggling to find its new identity. The cover story doesn’t contribute very much to the comic’s world, mostly focused on an underwhelming fight between our hero and a lame new enemy. The back-up story exist to remind us that, yep, this wandering plot point is still out there somewhere. Odd or off-putting artwork characterizes the entire issue. In other words, this one isn’t satisfying or that interesting. Alas. [5/10]