Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 281

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 281
Publication Date: May 2016

Here’s how fucked-up Archie’s release schedule was by 2016. Issue 281 features a pretty cute and amusing variant cover drawn by Diana Skelly. It features Sonic being chased by a bevy of love struck female characters, with Omega playing the trigger happy Cupid. If you hadn’t guessed, this cover was obviously meant to tie into Valentine’s Day. As in, February 14th. And the book wouldn’t actually come out until May, cause shit was all fucked-up. It’s a good thing the book’s primary cover featured a big event – the reappearance of Dulcy – to cover up that embarrassing faux-pas.

(By the way: Among the variant cover’s fawning females, in her sole Archie appearance, is Lah. That’s the cute little ghost girl from the “Night of the Werehog” short film. The “Sonic” fandom being as obsessive-compulsive as it is, Lah is fairly popular despite being a minor character. I attribute this largely to her super adorable design. I have no idea if Lah’s cameo here is a hint that Flynn planned to utilize her at some point in the future. If so, it would’ve been neat to see how a cutesy ghost could’ve fit into the Archie-verse, the kind of stories that could’ve been built around that. Alas, it was not to be for obvious reasons.)

Anyway, our cover story is melodramatically called “Wings of Fire, Part One: Slow Burn.” Sonic and the Freedom Fighters are in Yurashia, on the look-out for Zonshen, the local Gaia Temple guardian. After running into Silver Sonic and some Badniks, the team is assisted by Dulcy the Dragon. A long ago ally of the Freedom Fighters, Dulcy has returned home to start her own team. Since then, she’s only managed to gather three others to her cause: Cyborg tiger and Egg Army deserter Jian, studious tortoise Bunker, and childish pheasant Cinder. The problem emerges when it’s discovered that a phoenix, driven crazy by the Dark Gaia energy, is preventing anyone from entering the Gaia Temple.

After Lupe was re-introduced, it was only a matter of time before that other SatAM exclusive female cast member, Dulcy, appeared post-reboot. Dulcy’s redesign is more radical than Lupe’s, largely due to her design always being an odd fit for the Sega style. I think the compromise, making her tall and gangly instead of tall and chubby, is still awkward. (And the book never addresses why a western-style dragon is in an eastern setting.) Nevertheless, it’s nice to have her back. The sweetness at the core of the character is focused on, in a cute flashback showing how she first met the Freedom Fighters, how she was immediately welcomed into their ranks.

Part one of “Wings Of Fire” is largely devoted to introducing Dulcy, her team, and the world they inhabit. The Shijin Warriors are, as you might’ve guessed, another reference to the Four Guardian Beasts of pan-Asian mythology. Flynn uses these three to set up the fractured area. The tough and short-spoken Jian points out that Eggman has a strong grip on the psyche of the local people. The tribe the chipper Cinder comes from are isolationists. Bunker gets the least development, though he’s as steady and observational as you’d expect a tortoise to be. As for the characters, I immediately like Jian – she gives me some Julie-Su vibes - but find Cinder a little annoying. It’s not like the comic needs another enthusiastic child character, not when Cream is already on this mission. As for the setting, it’s already a more interesting take on Central Asia than the ninja/Monkey Khan version that existed previously.

The second half of the book is devoted to “Homesick.” While the other Freedom Fighters are screwing around in Yurashia, Tails and a Bunnie are in Adabat – seemingly based Southern Asia – to look for another Gaia Key. They find the guardian, Teanchi, who is distraught. His home, which has been in the family for generations, was lost when the world was shattered. He’s been squatting on the wreckage ever since. It takes Tails and Bunnie getting his kids over there to convince him to take help.

While Tails and Bunnie are trying to get Teanchi out of his funk, we flash back to when Bunnie first came to be with the Freedom Fighters. Confined to a wheelchair and still adapting to her robotic limbs at the time, Bunnie was feeling depressed. Like she would never belonged. It took Tails and Ben Muttski, still adorable little kids at the time, to perk her up. It’s a big change to Bunnie’s history, as preboot Bunnie adapted immediately to her cybernetics. (Though they were still a big source of angst for her, from time to time.) Still, it’s nice to see the book focusing on the characters’ feelings so much. Feels like that’s been lacking in the last two years.

This connects loosely to Teanchi’s own loss, though in a round-about way. Loosing your home is devastating but I think loosing limbs is probably worst. Flynn did a better job last month of having the Freedom Fighters help out some common folks and reflect on their past. Nevertheless, I’m fond of this format. If Flynn had been connecting the search for the Gaia Keys or whatever to small, personal issues all along, this extended MacGuffin chase would’ve gone down a lot smoother.

Remember how I said I didn’t start to warm up to the reboot until near the end? This issue and the “Eggman’s Dozen” arc in “Sonic Universe” seem to be the turning point. It’s not a gold star issue or anything. The stories are still weighed down by the laborious lore that haunted the entire reboot. Yet I do find myself liking this one a bit. The cover story provides the kind of slower, character centric story I’ve been preferring lately. And everyone gathering around to eat noodles and dumplings is adorable. While I’m not sure I like all the new info the back-up gives us, at least its focused on people we know and love. That sounds look a [7/10] for me.

Oh, by the way, I had planned on reviewing the 2016 Free Comic Book Day edition of “Sonic” today. I reviewed all the others, even the ones that were reprints. Yet, checking my collection, it would appear I don’t possess 2016’s FCBD book. I guess I wasn’t in the comic shop much that year. Moreover, from what I’ve read online, the freebie was just a digest sized reprint of issue 280 and “Sonic Universe” issue 84. In other words, the books I just reviewed, that were brand new at the time. The only extra content was previews of some upcoming issues. So it sounds like Archie didn’t expend any effort that year. In turn, it doesn’t sound worth my time to track it down. It pains me that my Archie Sonic retrospective won’t be one hundred percent comprehensive because of this but I think you guys will let it go, even if I won’t.