Sonic Universe: Issue 59

Sonic Universe: Issue 59
Publication Date: December 2013

As a spin-off, “Sonic Universe” always had a delicate balance to maintain. It seems to me that Sega and/or Archie would rarely approve a storyline if it didn’t star a character from the video games. Over the course of its 94 issue run, only four arcs starred characters primarily from the comic. It seems crazy to me that the fucking Babylon Rogues got a “Sonic Universe” arc before Bunnie or Lupe or someone we actually give a shit about like that. (A Freedom Fighters-centric arc was announced right before the book was canceled, of course.)

Only one of these Archie-centric arcs was published after the reboot. I have no proof that Sega demanded “Universe” focus more on their product after the reboot or if Archie was just hedging it’s bets after a shaky reboot. Either way, it sure seems like we’re going to see a lot of Shadow and Knuckles within the next year. The first of these arcs was “Shadow Fall” published through issue 59 to 62 of “Sonic Universe.” Fans seem to like this one well enough but, guess what?, I fucking hate it.

Part one of “Shadow Fall,” “Into the Unknown,” begins with G.U.N. deploying Team Dark and a bunch of random humanoid soldiers on a secret mission. It seems the Black Arms, those nasty aliens that helped Dr. Gerald create Shadow, are back on their way to Earth or whatever the fuck this planet is called now. The team’s goal is to plant a nuke on the Arms’ comet and blow the shit out of it, before the planet’s populace even notices. As the group enters the craft, Shadow begins to suspect they could be walking into a trap. Uh-duh, he’s right.

Upon opening this comic book, the main thought in my head is “What the fuck am I reading?” This is a “Sonic the Hedgehog” comic book?! Within the first couple pages, we see a bunch of generic space marine types fighting really badly designed alien creatures aboard some sort of bio-organic comet or something. There’s a huge mech thing there too. Shadow, Rouge, and Omega could not look more out of place with these guys. It’s like the “Sonic” gang was suddenly picked up and dropped into a shitty adaptation of “Gears of Wars” or the “Doom” movie. It reads more like sloppy fan fiction, a crossover throw together by an overly enthusiastic fanboy with little care for whether it made sense or not. This is very far removed from the general aesthetic of the series, especially post-reboot, and the contrast stings badly.

See, this is the problem with abandoning twenty years’ worth of comic book lore and replacing it with whatever the fuck stupid garbage Sega had been vomiting up over the last decade. Previously, the Black Arms were some mysterious, off-panel alien race. Prior to this, the “Shadow the Hedgehog” game was considered such a toxic misstep that Sega forbid the comic from giving its plot points anything but a passing mention. And I was perfectly fine with this. The “Shadow” game was a poopy piece of poop that I played for twenty minutes and then immediately returned to Blockbuster. Shadow didn’t need to be a half-alien creation that rode a motorcycle and wielded machine guns. I was content with the kind of interesting character the comic had turned him into in its place.

Now, the comic has had its history suddenly torn away from it. With nothing else to build on, the comic has to acknowledge the previously off-limits video game stuff. So I hope you’re an expert in the lore of the “Shadow the Hedgehog” video game, because this entire story line is build upon it. This is not a continuation of the comic I’ve been reading almost my whole life. It’s a sequel to a video game I can barely remember playing, one that almost everyone can agree wasn’t very good. Once again, it’s just another example of how slap-dashed and poorly planned the reboot was. I can’t have been the only long time reader of the comic that was totally ambivalent to what Sega has turned the “Sonic” franchise into in the intervening years. But storylines like this, that banked hard towards the video game crowd, completely alienate me and everyone like me.

I mean, that’s fanboy bitching about how the comic changed and we fear change. More pressingly, the Black Arms and G.U.N.’s soldier boys just fucking suck. First off, the Black Arms are badly designed. They’re these brown and red muscle monsters with goofy, pudgy little heads shoved onto their beefy shoulders. They wield swords and rocks against enemies with machine guns and nuclear bombs. There’s no consistency across the species, as other members of the race are flying bat things or floating humanoids. Their master plan - paralyze an entire planet and then eat everyone on it - is the sort of simplistic motivation you’d expect a child playing with their action figures to come up with. They’re a watered down, warmed over versions of the alien villains that have appeared in various sci-if video games, like “Halo” or the aforementioned “Gears of Wars.” Which, in turn, were basically rip-offs of “Aliens” and Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.”

As for the space marines, they are assholes to Shadow. They constantly refer to him with derogatory nicknames. This suggests something sort of interesting, that Mobians or whatever we call the furry animal people now, face prejudice from the humans they share their planet with. Except we will see no further evidence of this anywhere else in the reboot. (And I just really fucking hate to see “Sonic” characters interact with actual humans but that’s a topic I’ll rant about more at a future date.) Generally speaking, most of the soldiers have no personality, providing the reader with no reason to give a shit about any of them. I’ll say the same thing about the named Black Arms members we see here, like Black Death, who is just a generic evil thing.

Also, the plot for this one just sort of sucks in general. After the G.U.N. ship lands on the Black Comet, there’s a very underwhelming action sequence of the heroes quickly clipping through the aliens. It’s really obvious that Flynn is not comfortable writing this kind of stuff, as there’s no passion or urgency to these scenes. (They are also, of course, curiously bloodless.) After that, Shadow spends the rest of the issue telling everyone they’re walking into a trap. The team then walks into a trap. Simply put, there’s no tension here. It just feels like the plot is going through the motions. After that, Flynn introduces Eclipse the Darkling, his attempt to give Shadow an arch-enemy, making the proceeding nineteen pages feel like limp set-up for the story the writer actually wants to tell.

With such a drought of anything resembling compelling conflict, interesting characters, or even fuzzy nostalgia to hook the readers, what does this issue give us to latch on to? Well, Shadow is going through some stuff. Despite dedicating himself to protecting the world a while ago, he still feels a lingering connection to the Black Arms. This is exacerbated by the increasing isolation he feels from the humans and his team mates and a failed attempt to bond with the alien ship. When the soldiers hull out the thermo-nuclear butt plug, Shadow wonders if committing genocide against the Black Arms isn’t too extreme a measure. A hero being torn between two warring factions is, I guess, something kind of juicy for the reader to chew on. But that’s about it.

I hope you’re not reading this book because you’re a fan of the other members of Team Dark. Rouge and Omega get next to nothing to do. Omega is mostly comic relief, his love of destruction and explosives used for a few one-liners. He isn’t even seen that much in the action scenes, which seems like a real wasted opportunity. Rouge gets even less to do. She chitchats with Shadow a little about the aliens and delivers some exposition. I don’t even really understand why she’s here. I love Rouge but I can’t imagine she’d be that useful on an cosmic trip to destroy a horde of cannibalistic aliens.

The artwork is pretty good, I guess. Jamal Peppers knows his story stuff. However, once again, it feels like he’s aping Yardley instead of doing his own thing. I much preferred his earlier illustrations. As for the issue, it’s just bad, man. Oh, and did I mention this is part of a twelve issue “trilogy” of stories that takes up practically all of 2014? This part of the retrospective is going to fucking suck. [4/10]