The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia

The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia
Publication Date: October 2012

Over this retrospective, I have talked about my childhood belief that, if a comic book reached 100 issues, it was a legitimate and serious force. By 2012, Archie's “Sonic the Hedgehog” comic book had run over 200 issues. However, perhaps a better measure of a comic book's worth is when the series' continuity grows so convoluted and unwieldy that a guidebook must be published to keep track of everything. Numerous such source books and encyclopedias have been published by Marvel and DC to track their respective universes. In October of 2012, Ian Flynn and Archie would collect all the various bits of lore and character histories into one 191 page tome. Outside of fan wikis like Mobius Encyclopedia, it was about as comprehensive a guide to Archie's “Sonic”-verse as you could expect

And it couldn't have come at a better time. The Encyclopedia was first announced in 2009. It was originally going to be entitled “Sonic the Hedgehog Who's Who” and published over several volumes. It was repeatedly delayed. I suspect Ken Penders' lawsuit probably had something to do with that. I also suspect Ken's suit probably had something to do with the book being rushed out as one volume in October of 2012. The speedy release is apparent in quite a few typos and editing errors in the book. By this point, it was clear that Archie wasn't going to win the case, so they popped this thing out before they no longer had the rights to 90% of the material referenced inside of it.

This release date came only a few months before the comic's entire history would be wiped clean and rebooted. So, in a way, the Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia became the definitive guide to the old Archie Sonic-verse. The book covers the history of practically every character and concept up until the end of the original universe. Everything before this is everything the comic ever was and, more-or-less after this, none of that stuff exist anymore.

The Encyclopedia allows Ian Flynn to participate in one of his favorite activities: Reorganizing the book's lore into something that makes a little more sense. Or, at least, makes things look like they weren't entirely made up as they went along. To facilitate this, he splits the book up into several sections. We run through the core characters, the history of Mobius, all the bullshit involving Knuckles and the Brotherhood of Guardians, and then the smaller Freedom Fighter organizations. The next section is devoted to the book's villains and their associates. Other worlds, dimensions, and bits and pieces of magical and scientific doodads comprise the next section. The encyclopedia wraps up by talking about the possible futures of the universe. Put it all together and you have something resembling a fictional universe.

For hardcore Archie Sonic nerds, the most useful part of the Complete Encyclopedia takes up the last few pages. Flynn includes a definitive timeline of the entire series. It begins during the last days of Earth, runs through the birth of Mobius, the planet's prehistoric days (which clarifies the existence of dinosaur-like creatures called mobosaurs), and summarizes every war, conquests, and civilization that would follow. After that, it begins to recount the major adventures seen in the comics, which get a bit tedious. However, if you read no other part of the encyclopedia, definitely read the timeline. Flynn essentially reorganizes the book's hugely convoluted mythology and history into something actually coherent, while also filling in quite a few blank spaces.

Throughout the various encyclopedia entries, Flynn expands greatly on the background of the world and many of its specific characters. He runs us through the entire lineage of the Acorn Royal Family, filling us in on huge parts of the Acorn Kingdom's history. If you ever wanted to know who Sally's great-great-great-grandfather was and what he was all about, now you know.

He also takes this time to fill in little details on various character's background. So you learn about what Rotor's and Bunnie's parents did during the Great War, where Antoine's silly accent comes from. Or that Vector was raised by a mysterious, unnamed adoptive father. We even learn more about characters we do not care about. G.U.N's Abraham Tower was raised in the Overland before migrating to the United Federation. Warlord Kodos comes from Efrika. Nic the Weasel is still out there, somewhere. We learn the specifics of the Dragon Kingdom's “free people.” (Flynn even details the background of the Tasmanian Devil race, spoiling a portion of the then-upcoming “Endangered Species” arc.) Ian even seems to make fun of his habit of expanding lore slightly, by presenting a series of increasingly unlikely origins for Bean the Duck.

By spending so much time on Mobius' history, Flynn naturally has to talk a lot about the echidnas. Flynn is probably just following Ken Penders' lead but he makes the echidnas basically the most important creatures in Mobius' history. Throughout Albion's existence, they made several attempts to colonize the outside world. More often than not, they just made things worse. We discover there was a Forgotten War between the Ixis Order and Albion's forces. Similarly to his expansion of the Acorn royal line, we get a similar rundown through the Brotherhood of Guardians. We learn more about the relationship between the Fire Ants and the Brotherhood, the convoluted history of the dingoes, and Remington's even more confusing personal background.

We discover that there have been four Enerjaks in total. The original's history is intertwined with Aurora's, who began life as a normal echidna before becoming a goddess. That the original Enerjak had his consciousness spread throughout the Chaos Force. So Enerjak went from being Dimitri's evil alter ego to a malevolent, immortal force that every Guardian in history has been at risk from. That's pretty cool.

In order to reorganize the “Sonic”-verse's history, quite a few retcons are deployed. Some of these are pretty minor. At some point, Sonic legally changed his name to “Sonic,” dispensing with that Maurice Ogilvy Hedgehog business.  Mighty is a “Eastern” armadillo, which is why he looks so different from Arlo, a “Western” armadillo. Knothole was originally a retreat for Acorn royalty. Vector's bulky “Sonic Heroes” redesign is explained by him hitting the gym with Mighty, after apparently growing insecure about Knuckles' physical strength. Which is pretty funny.

Some of this stuff is so minor, it's hard to care about it too much. O'Knux's sunken island from Moebius is renamed Demon Island and he has an unseen team called the Orderix. Apparently Walt Wallabe has an unrequited crush on Barby Koala. How Hugo Brass got legionzied is detailed. The Iron Queen's brand of technomagik is actually a degraded version of Mogul's Ixis magic. Trey Scales of the Original Freedom Fighters betrayed the team because of his loyalties to the Southern Baronies. I'm not sure any of that was important but thanks for the clarifications, Ian.

Some of the retcons are more serious business. Tails' status as the Chosen One is basically dismissed, the encyclopedia explaining that he supposedly resolved that stuff several times. We learn that, when Amy Rose wished on the Ring of Acorns, she actually absorbed its magic. Which is why she can produce her Piko Piko Hammer out of nowhere. Flynn justifies Rosemary Prower's “House of Cards” behavior by saying she was an activist before becoming a mother. The flickie inside E-102 Gamma was the mother of the flicky that befriend Amy. Julie-Su's adoptive parents died in the Egg Grapes. It's confirmed that Moritori Rex actually did perform acts of sabotage while undercover in the Brotherhood, including murdering Athair's wife.

The information can be such nerdy little details, that they don't amount to much more than nitpicks. We discover Snively got his nickname from his dad, due to his sniveling behavior. The exact differences between Mobians and the Mobinis, or Auto-Automatons and Infiltrators, are detailed. We see Robotnik's family tree and discover that his grandmother had the matron name of Vasquez. Which suggest our favorite egg-shaped mad scientist has some Spanish ancestry. By far the most useless tidbit we learn is the existence of a group of Nerb Freedom Fighters, patterned after the original SatAM cast. Some of this stuff is so minor – the Arctic Freedom Fighters began as activists, New Megaopolis was the Overland capital, Rotor's walrus live in an inverted city called Iceborough – that I honestly can't even remember if it's new information or not.

The Encyclopedia also takes the opportunity to incorporate some video game-specific elements into the comic book's universe. So now the Nocturnus Clan, the bad guys from “Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood,” are ancient Albian precursors to the Dark Legion and co-existed with them inside the Twilight Cage. The exact motivation of the Black Arms, from that shitty “Shadow the Hedgehog” game, are revealed. (They eat people.) Blaze and Silver's previously unseen super forms are shown. A little more information about Eggman Nega and the Sol Stones are provided. My favorite choice morsel is the reveal that Little Planet from “Sonic CD” exists in the Archie-verse. And its watched over by Nicholas O'Tyme, the owl-shaped time traveling entity from SatAM. By far the dumbest inclusion is the reveal that the events of “Sonic '06” happen at some point in the comic's future but retcon themselves out of existence before they're through. So Princess Elise is running around somewhere on Mobius. Good to know.

Ultimately, “The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia” will only be of interest to a niche audience. Even as a hardcore fan of the comic book, who had been reading it since I was a little kid, some of the stuff here made my head spin. Trying to parse out the exact history of Robotnik/Eggman or the Echidnas of Albion is enough to make you go cross-eyed. However, I'm happy this short book exist. Immersing myself in the bullshit lore of this stupid comic book, especially right before all of it will be wiped out, is a lot of fun. It's not essential reading for Archie Sonic fans. You'll understand most of the books even if you don't know any of this shit. However, it sure is fun to dig into this stuff. [7/10]