Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 267

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 267
Publication Date: December 2014

A couple of reviews ago, I was talking about how unusual it was for Archie to commiserate the Halloween season with their October cover. I guess the company was feeling especially festive in 2014. While the standard cover for December’s issue focuses on the story’s images, such as the Werehog fighting the Flying Dynamo and Sally looking imperiled, the alternate cover imagines the Sonic cast at an especially awkward Christmas party. It was probably an unwise decision to invite a werewolf and your archenemy to your Christmas dinner, Rotor! Anyway, on with the review.

“Ambushed, Part 2” begins with our heroes, uh, getting ambushed. As Werehog Sonic and Master Moss swing through the Rocky Jungle Zone, they are attacked by Thunderbolt’s latest plot: The Flying Dynamo, an electrified super Badnik that heavily resembles the Zone 1, Act 1 boss from “Sonic 3.” Meanwhile, the Freedom Fighters’ attempt to retrieve a Chaos Emerald has gone horribly wrong, as Sally, Antoine, and Bunnie are hammered by Eggman’s new trio of E-series robots.

During the comic’s early days, when the book would zag from an extremely goofy cover story to a deathly serious back-up feature, it sometimes felt like you were reading two separate series. I got a minor flashback to those days with part 2 of “Ambushed.” The Sonic half of the story is light-hearted. It begins with Sonic and Moss going on a race together and that sense of fast-paced fun never fades. The Flying Dynamo is not much of a threat to Sonic’s Werehog form. All it does is singe his fur. It seemingly only takes Sonic and Mighty a few minutes to devise a successful scheme to take the machine down. This half of the story also depicts Sonic gaining complete control over his Werehog form.

While things go pretty easily for Sonic, the Freedom Fighters are getting their asses kicked. Maybe Flynn was just towing the Sega-mandated company line of “Sonic can never loose.” Or maybe he, like me, secretly finds the SatAM cast way more compelling than the video game one. Either way, watching our heroes struggle and lose is far more interesting than watching them succeed with minimal effort. Sally and the gang are battered, bruised, and barely make it away with their lives. If Rotor, Cream, Big and his weird floating mini bike hadn’t intervene, they probably would’ve been killed.

Sally leading her friends into such an obvious trap throws some serious doubt upon her skills as a tactician. However, this was one of Eggman’s more clever plots recently. Putting a Chaos Emerald out in the open and having it guarded by three new bots – the flying E-108 Iota, the drilling E-109 Kappa, and the scorpion-tailed E-110 Lambda – is standard villainy. The Freedom Fighters probably could’ve overwhelmed them with more firepower. But having the Emerald-containing Egg Prison sprout razor-tipped tentacles? And then it flies away?! And throws a giant, electrified tuna net behind it?!! I was genuinely surprised by the way this plan kept escalating in more unpredictable ways.

For the record, I am ambivalent about the new E-robots. Kappa is pretty cool. His Jeep green coloration and tank treads bring a militaristic angle to mind. (And the drill hands remind me of Grounder.) But the other two are a little goofy looking. An E-robot specifically designed for flight makes sense but giving it bird-like wings and claws seems totally unnecessary. Lambda, meanwhile, bounces around on his claws and tails. While his weapons are clearly fearsome, he strikes me as an otherwise impractical design. While I certainly understand the irresistible desire to assign each letter of the Latin alphabet to an E-robot, the line’s specialization is already getting overly specific. By the time Eggman gets to E-122 Psi, he will surely have run out of assignable features, gimmicks, and terrains.

While it probably would have been an alright issue if it had just focused on the action, do to the actual stakes at hand, Flynn still leaves room for some character interaction. There’s some cute scenes of Werehog Sonic bantering with Mighty, Ray, and Moss. Once Sonic is retrieved by the Sky Patrol, he sees his friends in pretty poor condition. Sonic partially blames himself, knowing things would’ve gone differently if he had been there, if he had taken his Dark Gaia energy infection seriously sooner. This short-lived moment of vulnerability quickly shifts towards Sonic flirting with Sally, which is a scene I also enjoy.

Flynn, always planning for the future, sets up a few plot points to exploit in the future. While Sally and the others are out getting their asses kicked, spoopy ol’ Tails Doll sneaks aboard the Sky Patrol. While I don’t think he’ll be murdering anyone at midnight any time soon, Flynn would continue to portray the plushy as creepy. This issue also reintroduces Breezy, a new/old character we’ll be talking about more soon enough.

It’s a pretty cool issue, all things considered. Jamal Peppers’ artwork is smooth and expressive. It balances action and emotion fairly well. While not an all-timer or anything, considering the uneven quality of the reboot thus far, it’s a solid issue that I enjoyed quite a bit. [7/10]