Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 287

Sonic the Hedgehog: Issue 287
Publication Date: October 2016

We are finally fucking here. Issue 287 of Archie’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” comic is the conclusion of the Shattered Earth Crisis. The story arc officially started in issue 256 but was heavily foreshadowed from the beginning of the reboot, in issue 252. That is thirty-four comics, released over the course of three years and one month. (And that’s only including the main book. “Sonic Universe” also touched on the crisis from time to time.) Even with a crossover event happening in the middle, there’s no reason it should’ve taken that damn long. You still could’ve done all that world building, Flynn! Like, the Freedom Fighters could’ve been checking on the status of the world after it’s restored! That way we wouldn’t have gotten three years of Werehog, of endless MacGuffin chases, of lots of people just kind of hanging out while the planet is literally torn apart.

But there I go ranting again. There’s no point in complaining about what could’ve been. Let’s at least be happy that Flynn concluded this saga before the comic was unceremoniously cancelled three months later.

And so: “Panic in the Sky: Part Four — Finale: As Was Foretold” has the newly transformed Super Sonic and Chip, piloting the Gaia Colossus, facing off against the fully charged-up Dark Gaia. Eggman and the Freedom Fighters can only sit back and watch as these god-like entities clash over the fate of the world. After trading blows for a while, Dark Gaia goes down into the lava. Chip performs the final ritual necessary to pull the globe back together. This causes the flying chihuahua thingy to lock himself inside the Earth for another thousand years, forcing him to say goodbye to all his new friends.

Let’s talk about this issue, first and foremost, as an action story. While the comic has certainly struggled since the reboot with the necessary demands of adapting a video game — namely, forcing a bunch of pacing-destroying bullshit lore into the book — it has always done a pretty decent job of adapting video game action scenes. The mechanics of the final boss fight, in which Super Sonic knocks down serpentine force field generators so he can punch Dark Gaia, are maintained. However, Flynn certainly has fun orchestrated what amounts to a kaiju battle. He even has Chip’s Gaia Colossus deliver a shoryuken to Dark Gaia.

Yet, there is a problem here. It only takes a few pages for Chip and Sonic to put down this world-jeopardizing eldritch abomination. Chip punches him a few times, Sonic spin-dashes into its face. And, before you know it, the oldest force of evil on Sonic’s world, the literal embodiment of negativity, goes splat into some lava. Sonic says Dark Gaia’s blast hurt him, even in his super form, but he never seems to struggle in this fight. It’s a problem Flynn has had before, displaying his troubles with long-term story planning. He wants this story arc — this fucking three year long story arc — to have an emotional resolution. In order to make room for that, he has to cut the final boss battle short. So after all that build-up, we get a totally rushed climax.

This is not the only way “As Was Foretold” feels like a clumsy conclusion to this overlong story. After Dark Gaia’s defeat, Chip pulls the entire world back together over the course of a(n admittedly pretty spiffy) two-page spread. And that’s it! I’m just sayin’, I’d expect more fireworks from the final incident of this supposedly epic story arc. Instead of showing the global reaction to the world being restored as one corner of a pretty picture, maybe ya should’ve devoted some actual pages to that shit? I know it seems weird for me, someone who has been bitching nonstop about the excessive length of this arc since the beginning, to ask that it go on a little longer. The point I’m making is Flynn had plenty of issues to tell a satisfying version of this story. But he was too busy dicking around in other departments. And now he seems as eager to get it over with as the reader is.

The actual meat of this issue ends up being Chip’s good-bye. As he descends back into the earth and concludes his prophecized duty as Light Gaia, he tells the Freedom Fighters how much they have taught them and how much he’ll miss them. It might’ve been a really touching moment if the reader had ever really gotten attached to Chip. I didn’t end up disliking the fairy-rat as much as I figured I would when he was introduced. There were even times when Flynn made Chip’s newfound enthusiasm for the cultures of the world kind of endearing. Yet Chip never emerged as a truly memorable or lovable character. Probably because Flynn was developing so much other stuff, including many other cast members that were much more interesting, Chip too often blended into the background. (And it certainly didn’t help that he ended up being yet another plot device needed to save the world.)

So Chip’s heartfelt goodbye doesn’t affect the reader much. In fact, it comes off as somewhat mawkish and corny. However, it does affect Sonic. When our hedgehog hero learns that Chip will have to lock himself into the earth to complete the ritual, he’s pretty upset. He feels like he’s left a friend behind and that makes him feel like he’s ultimately failed. It’s a good moment of character development, Sonic grappling with the fact that he can’t save everybody, not even his friends. Naturally, he gets over it pretty quickly, joining the Freedom Fighters in celebration after Chip repeatedly assures him that it’s okay. If lingered on for a minute longer, this moment could’ve added some nice bittersweetness to this victory.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite part of this particular issue are the background events. The fight between Sonic and Dark Gaia pauses long enough to show what the Freedom Fighters are doing. Rotor is chilling on the deck of the down but floating a Sky Patrol, watching the fight and drinking a soda. (Flynn is clearly invoking the image of a suburban dad drinking a beer on his front porch after mowing the lawn on a hot summer day.) This is probably an inappropriate response — if Sonic looses, the world ends — but it’s still sort of funny. The Freedom Fighters want to help but Rotor convinces them to sit back and watch. Sally gets a moment of wondering if they are doing the right thing, which is nice. I also like the few panels devoted to Eggman, also observing the fight, already starting to plot his next scheme. You can’t keep that guy down.

The end of the Shattered World Crisis is also, basically, the end of the comic. There’s only three issues left and they are devoted to a flashback arc. While I certainly have lots of thoughts about the book’s abrupt ending, I’ll save those for later. (A nice touch that unintentionally brings things full circle is Tracy Yardley, who was there at the beginning of Flynn’s run, drawing this one. Yardley does fine, though I really wish Hesse or Bryce Thomas could’ve handled this epic showdown.) “As Was Foretold” is a somewhat disappointing conclusion to what was a pretty good arc wrapping up a story that felt like it would never end. [5/10]