Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue ¼

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue ¼
Publication Date: November 1992

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, faithful Hedgehogs Can’t Swim readers! Thank you for taking time out of your busy celebration to cast your eyeballs on my dumb-ass blog! What with it being Christmas Eve and all that, I decided to do something really special today. Since I’ve already reviewed the Sonic Christmas special and talked about the December I got a Dreamcast, I’ve decided to devote this update to the true reason for the season: Spending your hard earned cash on stupid bullshit!

As you’ve probably figured, I have a nearly complete Archie Sonic comic collection. A lot of these issues I’ve owned since childhood, and they have the tattered pages and missing covers to prove it. As I’ve entered into what is ostensibly adulthood, I’ve managed to fill most of the gaps in my collection, via eBay and comic shop back issue bins. These days I have all the issues of the main series, as well as all the spinoffs, mini-series, and one-shots. But I’m not here to brag about how I have a crap ton of ratty old comic books instead of a 401k. Because I discovered not too long ago that my Sonic comic collection wasn’t complete. I was missing “Sonic 1/4.”

You may be wondering, what the fuck is “Sonic 1/4?” I’m glad you asked! “Sonic 1/4” was a free promotional comic given away with the November 1992 issue of “Sega Visions,” Sega’s attempt to compete with “Nintendo Power.” (In defiance of all logic and reason, Sega’s self-promotion rag managed to run for twenty-five issues. Maybe I’ll review them when I have absolutely nothing else left to talk about.) The freebie contains the first six pages of issue 0 of Archie’s original “Sonic” mini-series. “1/4” was released a few days before the full-length comic book and not quite a year before “SatAM” premiered on television, making it the technical first ever appearance of Sally and the rest of the Freedom Fighters.

It’s probably one of the rarer Archie Sonic issues. Luckily, most people don’t know about it, so it’s far from the priciest. (A quick perusal of eBay shows that people like to slap the biggest price tag on mint issues of the mini-series.) I managed to find a decent copy selling for twenty bucks. Because it’s the holidays, and because my girlfriend is totally indifferent to my blue rat fetish, I decided to buy “Sonic 1/4” as an early Christmas present to myself. That’s the contrived reason I’m posting this review on the 24th and, look, it only took me four paragraphs to explain it.

So let’s talk about the actual contents of “Sonic 1/4.” It’s yet another reprint (preprint?) of “Don’t Cry for Me, Mobius.” The first six pages anyway. This is a story I’ve already reviewed twice. There’s no point in going over it again. It’s so simplistic and silly it borders on shitty. But I still found myself smiling while reading this. At this point in my retrospective, I’m just beginning to re-read the rebooted issues. That massive change left me cold for a long time. So going back to the very beginning of the series, the very root of all the convoluted lore I would come to love, does tickle my nostalgia bone right about now. It’s honestly making me want to go back and re-re-read the first eight years or so of the book. I wish I was joking.

“Don’t Cry for Me, Mobius” is well-trotted ground around here but, holding this old comic book in my hands, I do notice some weird little details. Like the goofy superlatives the creative staff give themselves on the credits banner. Mike Gallagher, for an example, is credited as “Super Sonic Scripter” while Scott Shaw is the “Pedal to the Metal Penciler.” You get the idea. The comic banked really hard on those speed related puns early on. The moment where Sonic casually breaks the fourth wall to address the reader also sticks out way more now than it did in 1992. Years before Deadpool made that stuff popular, Sonic did it almost every issues.

As for the collector’s item itself, it’s pretty shoddy. My copy is less beat-up than the digital scans I used for the images here but only slightly. It’s a twenty-six year old comic book that was shoved between the pages of a forgotten magazine, so I’m not surprised. There’s some obvious printing errors in the book. Sonic’s chin and belly are frequently colored a darker brown, making it look like he has some serious five o’clock shadow in a few panels. In one panel, his eyeballs just straight-up vanish. Fuck-ups like this were pretty common in the book’s early days and I doubt Archie put much quality control into a free giveaway like this.

Going back to the comic’s earliest issue at this time strikes me as pivotal for another reason. It’s almost 2019. January begins the fourth year of this retrospective’s existence. If everything stays on schedule, this will also be the year I wrap up my Archie reviews. So merry Christmas, Hedgehogs Can’t Swim readers. When I started this project, I figured nobody would be reading it. I’m eternally grateful to have the regular commenters and viewers I do. Thank you so much for sticking with me. So enjoy the holiday, whether it’s spent with friends and family or just relaxing at home. Here’s to another year of being way past cool.