Sonic Free Comic Book Day 2014

Sonic Free Comic Book Day 2014
Publication Date: May 2014

In 2014, Archie would begin to publish short comic stories called Sonic Comic Origins. These would detail the backstories of the established cast members, as they exist in the rebooted universe. (Pointedly, characters that originated in the video games would be left out of this, as Sega refuses to let Sonic and his friends have an actual origin, as this would interfere with his status as a highly marketable corporate mascot.)

Despite this being fairly vital information, that informs this world and its characters, Archie and Ian Flynn did not see fit to include these stories in the actual on-going comic book. I guess they didn't want to interrupt the flow of the narrative, which is obviously much more important than knowing who these characters actually are and what they're about. Right? Sure. Anyway, the first of these Origins stories were published in 2014's Free Comic Book Day special. The second one would later be re-published soon afterwards in issue 7 of the “Sonic Super Digest.”

The first story is called “Sally – The Exiled Leader” and, obviously, revolves around Sally, the exiled leader. While the Freedom Fighters are working through a training simulation on the Sky Patrol, Sally thinks back on how the team was formed. She remembers her happy childhood days in the Acorn Castle, with her father. How he and Naugus were exiled to the Special Zone during Eggman's coup. How she fled to the Wood Zone, found Knothole Village. How Sonic inspired her to form her own team and fight back. How they've been fighting for years, rescuing her dad, winning the kingdom back, but still going forward to save the world and defeat Eggman forever.

Sally's backstory, as presented in “The Exiled Leader,” is not too different from the previous continuity. However, there's one really big difference. King Nigel Acorn is much less of a prick than King Max Acorn. The flashbacks emphasizes how much Sally loves her Dad, showing them playing when she was tiny. After rescuing Nigel and reinstating him as King, Sally asks her dad if she can forego her royal duties and continue to lead the Freedom Fighters. The King gives her his enthusiastic support. It's hard to imagine the old King Max doing either of those things. The preboot constantly mined Sally's struggle to balance her life as a Freedom Fighter with her life as a Princess. So that's one obvious way the reboot 'verse is superior to its predecessor. This is a King Acorn you can imagine people actually being invested in enough to want to rescue.

The training simulation set-up continues with “Rotor – The Exiled Inventor.” While building a rocket launcher to take down their digital adversary, Rotor recalls his own childhood. He grew up among a warrior walrus tribe in the frozen north. Unlike the rest of his family, he was more interested in technology than anything else. This caused him to run away from home and head towards the Kingdom of Acorn, supposedly a technological wonderland. Instead, Rotor arrived to find a conquered city. He soon met up with Sally and the Freedom Fighters, who quickly found a use for the walrus' inventive mind.

In the old continuity, Rotor's family were enslaved by the various Robotniks for more than a decade. Flynn switches this up a bit by having Rotor willingly leave his home. Being rejected by a distant father for being more intellectual than physical is a classic source of teenage angst. It's an okay origin but what's more interesting is the probably accidental connotations. In the old continuity, Ken Penders would reveal that he always wrote Rotor as gay. Assuming Rotor's double-secret closeted status is still true in the new timeline, the scene of the walrus coming out to his dad as a tinkerer, and being harshly rejected, reads very differently. And we already know Rotor's dad is now an Egg Boss. Flynn probably planned for the two to have a confrontation eventually but, naturally, was too busy with this Shattered Earth bullshit.

This issue also gives us a better look at the new continuity's history. It seems Flynn basically came to the same conclusion I did: That combining SatAM with the classic games is a solid decision. So there's lots of little images here that will be instantly recognizable to longtime Sonic fans. Such as the Princess Jasmine costume Sally wears as a little girl. Or the presence of Rosie, who was still her nanny. As a child, Rotor resembled his pudgier animated counterpart, even wearing the yellow baseball cap. And it would seem Eggman assumed power over the Kingdom of Acorn in more-or-less the same way, though the local countryside now features more marbled loops. At the same time, now it's evident Sonic began fighting Eggman before meeting the Freedom Fighters, presumably to make room for the events of the first few Sega games. Still, it works and I wish Flynn had led with this, instead of just dropping us into the middle of the action.

The artwork is by Lamar Wells. Wells previously did the pencils for issues 253 and 254, supposedly working off Tracy Yardley's outlines, in addition to providing a few covers here and there. Wells, working alone this time, does just fine. His Sally looks especially bouncy and cool. He draws good dramatic poses, which works for the highly static flashbacks, and dynamic action scenes, which work for the training simulation presence. He has a good balance of cute and gritty, that this series has always run on. 

I also like the little throwbacks and in-jokes in here. Such as the reveal that Rotor apparently invented the spikes throughout the Green Hill Zone as a trap for Eggman's Badniks. Or the bit of flirty banter Sonic and Sally get at the end of the first story. Most notably, the training simulation also has the Freedom Fighters battling Scorpius, the memorable first level boss from “Sonic Spinball.” The stories are solid enough and will probably make me a little more invested in these new versions of the established cast members going forward. Which makes me really wonder why Archie didn't include these in the main book. This seems like the kind of important information readers would want to know.

Instead, these Sonic Comic Origins were stuck into 2014's Free Comic Book Day release, where they would have to share half a comic book with Mega Man reprints. Not really caring about the adventures of Mega Man X or whatever, I didn't read that half of the book. (Spaz drew that story, so it at least looks snazzy.) Archie would continue to shove the Comic Origins into various Digests and Magazine releases, leaving them out of the regular book for some baffling reason. That makes this Free Comic Book Day release one of the most essential. [7/10]