Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 236

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 236
Publication Date: April 2012

I guess I sometimes give the impression that I'm not the biggest fan of Tracy Yardley. Listen, I like his work. When he's really bringing his A-game, he's among the best “Sonic” artist the book ever saw.  But as his tenure on the book went on, it seemed like his A-game wasn't brought very often. However, one time Yardley was really on the ball was the cover for issue 236. The cover is clearly designed to invoke a wartime poster, encouraging the people to fight and stay strong. Granted, the red, white, and blue color scheme doesn't make much sense on Mobius but those colors work together for a reason. The point is, it's one of my favorite covers.

“Cry Freedom” - oooh, that's a dramatic title – begins with Sonic seriously demoralized. After so many losses, he feels utterly hopeless. Luckily, Tails and Amy are there to snap him out of their funk. With Rotor, they make a bold proposal to the Council of Acorn. Two Freedom Fighters teams will form, one focused on protecting the city, the other focused on disrupting Eggman's empire abroad. This stradegy is put to the test as Robotnik's Death Egg floats over near-by Furville and attempts to take the village over.

“Cry Freedom” starts in a pretty compelling place. Within the span of about a week, Sonic has lost Sally, Antoine, Bunnie, Nicole, and the trust he had in the people of Mobotropolis. That's a pile-up that would bum anybody out, even if they are a speedy, quibbing hedgehog. I wish Flynn had explore the possibility of a hopeless Sonic a little more. It takes all of a page for Tails and Amy to talk him out of his depression. Spending more time would make the emotions Sonic is feeling more meaningful. (He actually says “The Freedom Fighters are done,” a pretty loaded statement for long time fans of this series.) It would also make him overcoming those feeling a bigger deal too. But Sega and certain insufferable Sonic fans get pissed if Sonic is sad for more than two seconds so here we are.

Back in 2012, the introduction of Team Freedom and Team Fighter is around the time my patience in the Mecha-Sally super-arc started to run out. It really felt like a compromise pitched at the “The Only Real Sonic is Sega Sonic” crowd. So now we've got the canon trio of Sonic, Tails, and Amy out there having adventures of their own. Meanwhile, Rotor is stuck at home with a bunch of B-listers, all of which are also drawn from the video games. The traditional team of Sally, Sonic, Rotor, Bunnie, Antoine, and Tails has been dissolved. And, yeah, the franchise's cast had grown much larger than that. The comic's world and the series has arguably grown beyond that core cast. But I can't help but feel like this new status quo, as temporary as it was meant to be, is a violation of what made me love this comic in the first place. I guess this makes me a sound like a bitter SatAM die-hard but SO BE IT.

Putting all of this stuff aside, I guess “Cry Freedom” is a pretty decent action story. The opening sequences devoted to Eggman invading Furville is solid. It also further emphasizes how ruthless Robotnik is getting, as he plans to stomp Furville strictly to crush Mobian morale. In a bit of mildly clever time shuffling, it's reveal that Eggman's invasion of Furville is happening after the events in Knothole. Sonic's Team Fighter leaps into the middle of the fight, quickly turning things around. This is meant to give us an idea of how Team Fighters will work. Sonic is the speedy one, Tails snipes EggSWATs from the Tornado, and Amy smashes shit with her hammer. And if you're into seeing that stuff, I guess it's entertaining.

The back-up story, “Leader of the Band,” attempts to do the same with Team Freedom in much less time. Rotor introduces the city to the line-up, which includes Big the Cat, Cream the Rabbit, and Heavy and Bomb. The introduction is questioned by Naugus, who reassures everyone in Mobotropolis that he alone can safeguard the city. At the point, the Tails Doll Robotnik dropped into Cream's hands back in 231 is a secret weapon. It activates a force field, damaging a building, and forcing Team Freedom into action.

“Leader of the Band” is a story primarily occupied with continuing Flynn's various plot threads. So we see Naugus having more difficulty controlling his schizophrenic inner battle. We see Rotor planning the seeds of mistrust against the new false king in the community. And we have this business with Tails Doll coming into focus. The plot mechanics are so thick, and the page count so short, that we really don't get a good idea of how Team Freedom will work. Rotor is the only one who actually has a personality. Big and Cream are one-note Sega characters that haven't been developed much, if any, past that. Heavy and Bomb, meanwhile, are complete blanks that haven't been seen since issue 154. (And that was a completely different, evil version of Heavy and Bomb.)

Maybe I'm just in a grouchy mood but it seems to me that issue 236, awesome cover aside, resolves some of the stuff Flynn has been setting up in the least interesting way possible. Instead of bringing the hearts and minds of Knothole together during a difficult time, he splits them up. Instead of reinforcing the core cast, he discards half of it. It was at this point that I really wanted the comic to get back tot eh stuff I love – Sonic and Sally and the Freedom Fighters kicking ass – instead of screwing around with this bold, brand new direction. [5/10]