Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Issue 18
Publication Date: July 3rd, 2019
As I write this, it’s the middle of November. I’m still recovering from Halloween. This is pretty typical of the 11th month of the year for me. After devoting myself totally to the spooky, scary season for two months, I’m both worn out and left wanting more. Micro-dosing with some creepy content - pumpkin donuts, the occasional horror movie - helps level me out. It’s a hair-of-the-dog scenario, for sure. Unexpectedly, catching up with IDW’s “Sonic” has helped me with that. The Zombot story arc is definitely the most horror-like content we’ve gotten from the franchise in years.
“Victims!” has Eggman continuing his spread of terror throughout the land. His next stop is Floral Forest Village, a small town home to Cream the Rabbit. Eggman specifically targets this area because of the mental distress it’ll cause Sonic. As the hedgehog races around, trying to fight off the Zombots and his own Metal Virus Infection, he’s soon accosted by Gemerl. Cream and Vanilla’s robot protector deems Sonic a threat. Soon, a conflict emerges as the Zombot outbreak continues.
“Victims!” represents the tedious part of the zombie movie where the characters start bickering among themselves. The story seems to tease a fight between Sonic and Gemerl, as if Flynn was nearly succumbing to his combat-over-character tendencies, before the characters and the plot realizes the zombie outbreak is more pressing. This is not the only time an ethical debate breaks out in the heat of the moment. Just when Gemerl is ready to use lethal force against the Zombots, Cream steps in and convince him to take it easy. That there are still people with souls under the virus and that they may be saved eventually. This seems like another set-up for the inevitable reversal of the virus. It’s also the comic admitting it’s a G-rated book for kids and that there will be no head shots or machetes-to-the-face forthcoming.
A while back, I asked if Gemerl would re-appearing in the IDW comic, after finding his dad-like personality in the Archie book endearing. Like that same week, it was announced Gemerl would be appealing in this issue. Disappointingly, Gemerl is not himself. Instead of the delightfully grouchy and wholesome personality he had in the Archie series, Gemerl appears here as... Just a robot. He barks statements in a mechanical voice. He speaks stiffly and technically. It’s a real letdown, taking a character that was previously entertaining and amusing and making him a complete blank. This feels like another one of Sega’s scumbag corporate mandates, “robots can’t have personalities” or some bullshit like that.
While I have lauded the surprisingly dark direction the comic has taken recently, I’m already beginning to feel like things are getting a little repetitive. This is the third issue devoted to Sonic running to a town, fighting off hordes of Zombots, scooping up his friends there, and leaving the town to the infected. Similarly, we are once again treated to multiple panels of Sonic feeling overwhelmed and frayed. This time, his interior monologue focuses on whether or not he can save himself as well as Cream. While I love desperate, introspective Sonic, it really does feel like Flynn is just starting to repeat himself here.
He comes very close to repeating himself more. All throughout the issue, the point is repeatedly made that Cream is an extraordinarily brave and bright child, that she is a force of light, positivity, and innocence in this crazy, mixed-up, shook-up world... So, like, she’s definitely going to turn into a zombie, right? That’s where this is heading, yeah? Nope, it turns out. Even though he subjected the similarly childish Charmy to this fate, Flynn does not have the balls to infect Cream. He doesn’t even turn Vanilla into a robot. Instead, he infects Cream’s Chao, Cheese and Chocola. Which certainly doesn’t have the same effect and is, in fact, kind of unintentionally funny. Seeing cute little Chao fly around as red-eyed, evil automatons is rather amusing.
In my previous IDW review, I noted some disappointment that Starline is not as complex a character as it initially appeared. Flynn backtracks a little bit here. It turns out Starline is growing disillusioned with his idol. Though not because of Eggman’s clear instability or eccentricity. It’s the villains’ inability to plan ahead that makes Starline doubt his adherence to the Eggman Empire. At one point, it becomes clear that the Zombots can not be controlled. Eggman just shrugs it off, assuming he’ll work it out eventually. This really rubs the perfectionist Starline the wrong way. I’m very curious where Flynn is taking this.
It looks like Flynn is doing something similar in the next issue, as Eggman is moving on to the next city, which Team Dark is already working to counteract. Hopefully after that, Flynn will shake things up again. Or else this Zombot story arc is going to wear out its welcome really quick, after a really strong opening. [6/10]
This was originally going to be a Skelly issue, but that didn't pan out for some reason. Instead we got Yardley again, and it's the last we'll see of him (outside of some covers) for a LONG while. He did a huge tweet thread a while back talking about how he was gonna be absent from the book for a while because he had to adopt some kids who were taken from an abusive household and so he was too busy to keep up with stuff that summer when the kids weren't in school (thus issue 21, which was originally going to have him, needed a change in artist), and now that the kids are in school he's working on Ian's Cosmo series for Archie (which got revived for another 5 issue miniseries)
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