Sonic Super Special: Issue 13 – Sonic Adventure

(Yes, I have heard the rumors concerning the possible cancellation of Archie's "Sonic" series. I intend to write about this eventually. But until we get more information - or, god forbid, an official confirmation - business will continue here as usual.)

Sonic Super Special: Issue 13 – Sonic Adventure
Publication Date: March 2000

After what seemed like months of build-up, Archie’s proper adaptation of “Sonic Adventure” finally hit newsstand in March of 2000. That’s a full six months after the game was released in America. Like many young Sonic fans, I received a Dreamcast and “Sonic Adventure” as a Christmas present. I’m pretty shitty at video games but even I managed to complete the game by March of 2000. During the seemingly endless build-up to Archie’s adaptation, I became really curious about how Archie would integrate the game’s story into the comic’s world. Even back then, I was disappointed with what we got.

“Sonic Super Special: Issue 13” shoves all of “Sonic Adventure’s” story lines into sixth brief chapters. After Sonic’s encounter with Chaos in issue 82, and Amy’s subsequent disappearance, the Freedom Fighters break into three teams. Sonic and Tails fly across the forest around Station Square, quickly encountering Knuckles, Robotnik, and the evolving Chaos. After a brief fight, the various story threads – including Big the Cat and Amy Rose – converge on Robotnik’s Egg Carrier warship. There, the heroes come together to defeat the villain’s latest scheme… Or, at least, it seems that way.

How many times have I emphasized this? Archie did a pretty shitty job of incorporating the Sega elements into its comic book. After practically, literally shoving Station Square under a rock, the “Sonic Adventure” special barely makes an effort to make the comic’s cast work in the video game plot. See how I mention the Freedom Fighters splitting into three teams above? Yeah, that doesn’t matter. Antoine and Bunnie take a pointless trip around the city, trying to spot any sign of Robotnik. Sally and Nate Morgan shack up in the library, researching information on Chaos. After the first chapter, we never see these characters again. The story turns its focus entirely to Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. So why bother with this introductory chapter at all?

If we’re being brutally honest, it’s not like “Sonic Adventure” had an especially great story to begin with. The much hyped Chaos isn’t anything more then a series of boss battles, without a lick of personality on his own. The game didn’t even play up the irony of Sonic fighting an enemy made of water, a substance he notoriously has trouble navigating. (See also: The title of this blog.) The video game had to go to lengths to justify the role established characters like Tails and Amy Rose could play in this story. New characters, like Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma, were even more unnecessary additions to the plot. The entire multiple characters aspect of the game was, in truth, nothing but a lame gimmick, an excuse to shove a number of different game styles into one package.

As mediocre as “Sonic Adventure’s” plot was, Archie completely butchers the story to make it fit into a 48-page comic book. Listen, I understand that a video game provides far more time and space to explore things. Yet maybe Archie shouldn’t have tried to shove the meat of the game’s story into one special? Maybe they should have, I don’t know, tried serializing it over several comics? You know, instead of wasting three whole issues on just setting up the damn adaptation? While the game seems to take place over the course of a week, letting its concept breathe a little, Archie makes all the events feel like a few hours. Sonic and Knuckles have one fight with Chaos, blast off for the Egg Carrier, and have their final showdown with the enemy. No time at all passes between these events.

An alternative method to making the story work in so few pages would’ve been to cut the more unnecessary characters all together. Let’s be honest: What did Big the Cat and Amy Rose really add to “Sonic Adventure’s” plot anyway? Instead, Karl Bollers awkwardly inserts the characters into a handful of scenes. As in the game, Big’s plot is entirely superfluous. He never directly interacts with the other heroes and his mission has no affect on the overall plot. Amy, meanwhile, spends nearly the entire issue captured by Robotnik. She appears in a handful of panels and that’s the extent of her involvement.

When it’s not juggling the useless characters or abbreviating the story considerably, Archie’s “Sonic Adventure” adaptation is awkwardly juggling the actual video game mechanics. When Sonic and Tails are flying towards Eggman’s war ship, the Tornado transforms for absolutely no reason. Once aboard the ship, Sonic has to step on a series of buttons on the floor to transform the vessel. During the final fight with Chaos, Robotnik deploys a series of freezing machines to attack Sonic. This is a very poor idea, seeing as how Knuckles and Sonic immediately use the machines to freeze Chaos. Damn, Eggman, you didn’t think that one through, did you? All of these scenes just go to show how very different a media comic books are from video games.

Then again, maybe we can’t blame Karl Bollers too much for the comic’s scattered nature. Reportedly, Sega refused to provide Archie with an actual translation of the game’s script. Instead, Karl and Ken Penders had to play a Japanese version of the game and adapt their notes from that. So it’s no wonder the script is full of gaffs. Multiple references are made to Robotnik destroying the Ancient Ruins. As in, the unoccupied buildings outside the city limits. Wouldn’t you think Station Square, full of people and the current residence of the Freedom Fighters, would be a more dramatically sound place to threaten? What about the way the issue interchangeably uses the phrases Chaos Emeralds, Master Emerald shards, and Super Emeralds? Or that one time Knuckles is literately teleported onto the Egg Carrier’s deck, for seemingly no reason?

The script is a mess, perhaps inevitably so. Somehow, the artwork is even worst. “Sonic Super Special: Issue 13” represents the beginning of my least favorite period in Archie Sonic history. Rom Lim, a Marvel artist apparently of some acclaim, draws the issue. Soon enough, he would become the regular artist for the series. This is despite Lim’s complete inability to draw Sonic and friends. The Sega characters frequently have overly spindly bodies, with noodle limbs and insanely huge hands and feet. Lim’s facial expressions are hideous. His mouths are always angular, his faces blank, and his eyes perpetually stuck in stink mode. Often, his characters are making expressions totally at odds with the script, such as when Knuckles smirks evilly when encountering Sonic. A few times, Lim draws Robotnik as just a floating head.

As bad as the Sega crew looks, the Freedom Fighters somehow look shittier. Lim’s Sally is composed of jagged, furry edges. Her face bends into deeply unflattering shapes. Antione also has noodle legs but a weirdly weaselly face. Bunnie gains a strangely shapely, human-like body but has a face that wouldn’t pass muster among Bugs Bunny fan artist. A flashback to echidna history has Lim drawing the Knuckles Clan as indistinct blobs. Maybe Lim hadn’t adapted yet to drawing furries. Then why do his humans look equally generic and off-model? It’s absolute shit and, for some reason, Archie would invite Lim back to draw roughly a hundred other issues.

If it isn’t readily apparent, I’m not a huge fan of the “Sonic Adventure” adaptation. The story is a hack job. The pacing is abhorrent. The comic does a terrible job of balancing the different plot threads. The artwork is garbage. (Spaz contributes two whole panels and they're better then everything Lim would draw during his entire tenure on “Sonic.”) Archie has bungled some big events, before and after, but few were as poorly handled as “Sonic Adventure.” And get used to it, because things are going to stay this way for a while. [4/10]