Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 118

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 118
Publication Date: December 2002

In the last month of 2002, Archie would introduce an obnoxious cover gimmick for their “Sonic the Hedgehog” series. For the next few months, the book’s covers would imitate magazines. And not just in design, what with headshots bordering the main image in a uniform way. For some stupid reason, headlines patterned after things you’d see in “People” or “Cosmo” are printed around on the cover. Why? I don’t know why. It certainly chains Spaz’ hands, preventing him from creating eye-catching images. Thankfully, this would be a short-lived gimmick. But we still have to look at it for a while.

But what of the stories inside? “Robotnik’s Return” delivers on just that, though in a round about way. Robotnik and Snively finally get their minds back in robotic bodies resembling their standard appearances. The Freedom Fighters corner the villain before he can do any more damage. The big fight is interrupted when motherfucking aliens intervene. They abduct Sonic, Tails, Robotnik and Snively before plopping them down in an alien coliseum. Then, for some reason, they turn Robotnik and Snively into humans and Sonic and Tails into robots. The winner gets returned to normal. The loser stays this way.

If you haven’t figured it out already, this story is an awkward attempt by Benny Lee to undo some of the comic's recent mistakes. By the story’s end, Robotnik and Snively are human. So the writer’s bizarre decision to robotocize Snively is reversed. Eggman, meanwhile, becomes a flesh and blood being for the first time. This was presumably done in order to raise the stakes. Now, Robotnik can’t just download his mind into a new body when he’s blown up. These were smart decisions. But was it necessary to bring in aliens to resolve this? It’s a totally random writing choice.

As an action story, “Robotnik’s Return” is underwhelming. You’d expect the big fight between Robotnik and Sonic to be the centerpiece. And it is but not a very effective one. Robotnik and Snively face down Mecha-Sonic and Mecha-Tails in a two-legged battle machine… Which is destroyed in one panel. Turns out, regular human beings aren’t much of a match for super-charged robots. I’m not sure why these aliens had to go through all this just to figure that out. At least Steven Butler’s artwork is nice.

The second story isn’t so nice looking, since Ron Lim draws it. But the script is better! In “Heart to Heart,” Karl Bollers finally picks up a plot point he abandoned a while ago. The combined efforts of Dr. Quack and Rotor have healed Geoffrey St. John and his Secret Service from the Nanobot infection Robotnik gave them. Back to normal, Geoffrey and Hershey have a – go figure – heart to heart conversation. The story concludes with the two deciding to search for Prince Elias, another plot thread left dangling last year.

What’s most surprising about “Heart to Heart” is that Geoffrey St. John actually admits that he was wrong. He admits he was a shitty leader of the Secret Service, getting them captured and harmed. He reflects on how his pursuit of Sonic was based out of jealousy and ego. He even fesses up to being a shitty adviser to Elias Acorn, driving the prince away. Considering the character is such a hard-headed jerk, it’s very unusual for him to realize so bluntly how wrong he was. (And it’s a move that was unlikely to happen under Penders’ pen, I think.)

The story also expounds on St. John’s origin and his future a little bit. We learn more about his life before the fall of Mobotropolis, about his father’s death and his reaction to Robotnik’s rise. As for the future, St. John and Hershey’s relationship is confirmed with an on-panel kiss. The two running off together on an adventure at the end seems to be a symbolic marriage of sorts. It seems unlikely to me that a committed patriot like Geoffrey would fall in love with a confirmed traitor like Hershey. Then again, the heart wants what it wants. And this finally buries the Sally/St. John ship.

The last story concludes Ken Penders’ “Ultimate Power” story arc. Knuckles confronts Mammoth Mogul before the villain reveals that the entire room is a Chaos Syphon. Before the echidna gets his god-like powers sucked away, he goes into overdrive. A massive explosion of chaos energy follows. When Constable Remington and the Dark Legion investigate, they discover three things. Mogul has vanished. Dimitri is unharmed. And Knuckles is dead.

As always, Ken buries the emotion under a lot of bullshit. Before we get to the important stuff, we’re treated to three whole pages of Knuckles and Mogul yelling at each other. Their dialogue is way too damn technical, focusing on the minutia the reader doesn’t care about. After the dramatic event happens, Ken cuts away from the important people. We don’t see Julie-Su and the Chaotix’s reaction to Knuckles’ demise. Instead, Lien-Da and Remington, two characters with no emotion connection to the Guardian, discover his corpse. We only see Lara-Le’s reaction in one small panel, during a scene otherwise devoted to renaming the Floating Island to Angel Island. (This was presumably done to bring the comics more in line with Sega cannon, though this story was a weird place to do it.)

So what do I think of Knuckles’ death? Well, even in 2002, I knew this was temporary. There’s no way Sega was going to let Ken Penders kill off one of their flagship characters. Even as a fourteen year old, I assumed a spiritual journey through the afterlife was coming next. It’s also a bummer that Knuckles died defending Dimitri – his former arch-enemy – instead of his girlfriend, mother, or best friends. For that matter, making Mammoth Mogul a component in the death is another odd decision. Wouldn’t it have made stronger dramatic sense to have Lien-Da betray Knuckles or something? The death scene just isn’t handled in the best way, is my point. (Dawn Best’s artwork is a little off too, making once again wonder if Ken drew part of this one.)

So 2002 ends on a weird note. Issue 118 is full of big changes. Robotnik and Snively are human again. Knuckles is dead. Geoffrey St. John and Hershey are going to be out of the picture for a while. Yet only that middle story comes anywhere close to hitting the emotion it’s reaches for. The other stories seem built around changes that are either unimportant or temporary. But at least the book is slightly better then that godawful cover suggests. [6/10]