Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 286

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 286
Publication Date: September 2016

It's sort of amazing the difference a few issues can make. Up until very recently, I was so bored with the Shattered World Crisis. I just wanted this shit to be over. You read this blog, you know that already. Now that the plot is actually fucking moving, now that we are actually feeling what’s at stake here, suddenly I’m into it. I’m sure, if pressed on the issue, Flynn would claim all that build-up was necessary to make the big climax work. But let’s be real here. “Panic in the Sky” would’ve been just as good if it had come a year or two earlier.

But, hey, let’s not bitch about what might’ve been, let’s bitch about what is. In “Panic in the Sky, Part Three: Colossal Crash,” the battle for the fate of the world continues. Sonic races up the Gaia Colossus, seeking out Chip, while Eggman and his Egg Dragoon rains hot hellfire down on him. The Freedom Fighters battle their way through the E-series robots towards Eggman Land. The Sky Patrol does what it can to distract the Death Egg. All the while, the awakening of Dark Gaia grows ever closer.

This story arc continues to give us good examples of what comic book heroes should be. Victory still remains uncertain for the Freedom Fighters. They continue to be hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. And yet they fight on. Rotor throws everything the Sky Patrol has at the Death Egg. Eventually, the ship is overwhelmed and crashes to the ground. Sonic, though he remains as snarky as ever throughout, can only stand up to the Egg Dragoon for so long. Eventually, Robotnik freezes him in his tracks and moves in for the kill. Nobody dies, of course. Rotor and Nicole survive the Sky Patrol going down. Sonic changes into the Werehog just as Eggman has him pinned down. From a meta perspective, we readers obviously know the heroes will live and win the day. But that sense of struggle, of standing up against a threat even when the odds are bleak, is exactly the reason I love this shit.

Making it so the heroes are actually struggling has another benefit too. It makes those victorious moments much more meaningful. This issue has at least two of what I call “Fuck yeah!” moments. When the heroes suddenly come back and whoop some major ass, when we get that little rush of adrenaline. (For a better known pop culture example, it’s something the Marvel movies are really good at.) Sally, Bunnie, and Antoine team up to take out E-106 ETA, Bunnie eventually delivering a laser-assisted punch right into the robot’s face. Fuck yeah! When Sonic suddenly transforms into the Werehog and uses those stretchy limbs to wail on the Egg Dragoon? Fuck yeah! Flynn attempts these all the time and usually the heroes’ victory seems too easy. But here he grabs exactly what he aims for.

Moreover, the status of the world really feels precarious here. A few times throughout the Shattered World Crisis, we’ve felt the seismic effect the planet literally cracking apart has on the populace. Too often, the comic has just treated it like a status quo, life just continuing as normal even though the continents are torn apart. In “Colossal Crash,” Flynn captures an apocalyptic feeling. The skies are dark and red. Massive lightning bolts are ripping out of the sky. Cities are crumbling apart, Eggman Land collapsing under Sally’s feet. When a giant monster pulls itself out of the earth, things officially start to feel Biblical. Why didn’t the Shattered World Crisis feel this epic along? I guess it would’ve been hard to maintain this mood for three years but, again, the story should’ve have gone on that long.

Let’s talk about that giant monster some more. Some kaiju-like abomination appearing to battle Sonic at the end of the game has become a reoccurring feature in the “Sonic” series, since at least “Sonic Adventure.” (I guess the Death Egg Zone Boss from “Sonic & Knuckles” would be a precursor to this.) It’s so expected now that it’s no longer exciting or interesting. It’s exactly the role Dark Gaia played in “Sonic Unleashed” and, right on time, Super Sonic appears at the end of this issue, ready for the final boss battle. Yet, at least on this iteration, Dark Gaia proves more interesting than the Bio-Lizard, Metal Overlord, Solaris, Devil Doom, or Nega Mother Wisp. He has a truly creepy and weird design, a huge mouth extending out both sides of his mouth. It gets even weirder when giant, insanely staring eyeballs grow out of that mouth. Yes, it would be more interesting if, just once, Sonic had to stop a threat like this without going Super Saiyan. But Dark Gaia remains a suitably intimidating threat.

Diana Skelly and Adam Bryce Thomas do double-duty on the art here. While I really love Skelly’s cartoony style, and found her art’s looseness really helped contributed to the sense of panic in the last few issues, she sometimes makes things look a little too goofy here. Sonic’s reaction to hearing that Eggman intends to kill him looks a little too much like a Garfield reaction. Thomas’ work is also excellent but I think the action scenes, especially when the Werehog unleashes its furry fury on the Egg Dragoon, are a little hard to follow. I guess what I’m saying is both artists are extremely skilled but maybe should have reigned their style in a little when telling this story.

I guess this is what I was talking about when I’ve mentioned in the past that the reboot didn’t start to work for me until near the end. I really like this comic book! It’s exciting, stirring big emotions in the reader! It’s well paced, all these plot points hitting just when they are suppose to with the correct amount of impact. The reveals are cool and there’s even plenty of emotion, when Sonic convinces a hopeless Chip that not all is lost or in the Freedom Fighters’ insistence on keeping on even when everything looks bleak. It took Flynn three years but he finally wrote a Post-Super Genesis Wave story as good as his best earlier work. [9/10]