Sonic the Hedgehog: 5th Anniversary Special

Sonic the Hedgehog: 5th Anniversary Special 

Original Publication Date: April 5th, 2023

Time is a crazy fucking thing. It’s hard for me to believe that IDW “Sonic” is officially five years old now. It doesn’t seem like that long, especially since Archie “Sonic’s” road to this point felt like it took forever. Is that because Archie was utterly determined to launch a spin-off to the hedgehog book in its early years, putting out so many miniseries and “48-page specials?” Or simply because the days are longer and the summers seem to stretch on forever when you’re a child? I can figure out which of those solutions is more likely. I’m a middle-age man now with a bad back, who works twelve hour shifts, and takes medication for my debilitating mental illnesses. Five years isn’t nearly as much time as it used to be, ya know what I mean?

Either way, one thing hasn’t changed since the early nineties: Five years is still a really good run for a comic book, a licensed book especially. Even well-known superhero titles can’t go that long without being relaunched and renumbered. A hundred things are different since Archie reached this milestone but this is consistent: “Sonic” fans are loyal and will follow the blue hedgehog anywhere. IDW doesn’t have any plans to slow down either. Will this series someday surpass Archie “Sonic’s” five hundred issue-plus run? I mean, it seems unlikely. But so did any “Sonic” book reaching that point. Anything is possible with this franchise. I feel like there’s a decent chance I’ll still be reading about these characters in another twenty years, when I’m fifty-five goddamn years old, and publishing these reviews directly from my brain to the mass-consciousness psychlonet we’ll all be hooked up to 24/7. I bet Blogger’s interface will still be the same then too. 

Anyway, the point of this rambling review is this: IDW is more than entitled to celebrate their series running this long. Anniversary specials and gimmicky one-shots were common in the Archie day, so I’m glad IDW is keeping that tradition alive. The “5th Anniversary Special” is mostly just a reprint of issue 1’s “Fallout: Part One,” but it does include a short back-up story that’s new. In “Familiar Territory,” Sonic returns to the village of Vista View from that first issue. It’s under attack by Badniks yet again. Sonic runs into the same wispon wielding canine that he rescued back then. The guy seems more battle savvy now. He regales Sonic with what he’s been up to recently before the two fight back the enemy robots together. 

In the name of professionalism, I actually did re-read the first story here. Going back to the very first IDW “Sonic” story does highlight the ways this series has changed in the five years since its inception. I first reviewed “Fallout, Part One,” I give it a middling rating. My opinion hasn’t changed much since then. This story is still pretty thin broth. It reintroduces Sonic and Tails to readers while briskly establishing the new comic’s world, which followed directly in the path of “Sonic Forces.” Other than that, it’s basically a simple action sequence, devoted to Sonic and Tails smashing some Badniks and saving a town from invaders. 

Since then, the strengths of IDW’s title have become apparent. This series is at its best when exploring the relationships, and psychological baggage, between its characters. In the time since then, original characters like Tangle, Whisper, Belle, and Surge have become generally beloved for their rich characterization. In fact, the comic-exclusive characters have often proved more complex and nuanced than the Sega-created cast were ostensibly here to read about. While the Archie comics were celebrated for their expanded world and wide cast, IDW “Sonic” is at its best when showcasing detailed personalities and story arcs that foreground conflict and interpersonal struggle. 

You see little of that in the first story. Other than a brief moment of Tails being angsty over Sonic’s presumed fate in “Forces,” it’s mostly devoted to smashing and banter. I guess that’s what the average reader expects from a “Sonic” title anyway. At the time of that first review, I expressed concern that the new comic would just tow the Sega corporate line and not allowed the characters to expand beyond shallow mascots, designed to promote Sega’s new games. That’s still what this first story feels like, right down to its insistence that Sonic be a free agent roaming the globe and with few roots. It’s thanks to the work of the passionate writers and artists who run this series that IDW “Sonic” became more than that in time. 

Alright but enough about the reprint. What’s my thoughts on “Familiar Territory,” the primary reason I’m talking about this comic book in the first place? Well, it’s okay. There’s not much to it. This is primarily a story about how heroism inspires heroism. Sonic rescuing Hammer Guy at the beginning of the series pushed him to help other people. He masters his wispon – the “bootleg Mjolnir,” as I called it – and uses it to defend his fellow countrymen from the threat of robots and robot zombies. Well, that’s nice, I suppose. Though it doesn’t give us much in the way of insight into this guy’s life or personality. (We don’t even learn his name, which is why I’m still calling Hammer Guy.) The best moment is when Sonic allowing them to team-up makes tears prick up in Hammer Guy’s eyes. Aww, his hero is letting him tag along. 

The truth is, I halfway wonder if “Familiar Territory” isn’t meant to be an extremely abbreviated recap of sorts for potential new readers. Aside from die-hards like myself, this special is most likely to be picked up by people who are newly interested in “Sonic” comics. What better place to start than the first issue? That the back-up story provides a very brief run-through of the Metal Virus saga almost feels like IDW admitting that fans can skip that lengthy, divisive story arc if they want to. “Here, jump right into the story with Belle’s introduction, that’s when the series really found its footing anyway.” (Which is more-or-less true.) 

At only five pages long, this one ends just as it’s starting to get good too. After Hammer Guy runs through his history, it looks like Sonic and him are going to thrash some Badniks together. And that’s where things wrap up, which furthers my theory that this story is meant to function more as a recap than a stand-alone tale. I’ll give Ian Flynn’s script this much: I genuinely wanted to see Sonic and Hammer Guy team up together. Perhaps there’s some plans to bring the character back some day as a more experienced member of the Restoration, the way Lanolin evolved from literal background player to cover feature. Maybe Hammer Guy will even get a real name next time too. (The Sonic Wiki just calls him “a local” and doesn’t even have a page for him as of this writing.)

Reading the very beginning of IDW “Sonic” back-to-back with the latest tale highlights another evolution too: The quality of artwork has really gone up over the years. Not that this series has ever looked bad, especially not when compared to the Archie low points of Many Hands or Ron Lim. Yet Tracy Yardley's work early on definitely seemed a little exhausted. I got the impression that maybe he was a little burnt-out on “Sonic,” after being one of the primary artists during nearly Flynn's entire Archie run. His subsequent work on IDW has been better, more artistic and refreshed. His panels on the back-up story are much more expressive and fluid than the occasionally sketchy work on the reprint. It seems to me that Yardley only showing up every once in a while, as opposed to being the go-to “Sonic” artist, has allowed him to grow and evolve as an illustrator. 

IDW, with their love of variant covers, made sure this special came with a wide variety of options for collectors. There's three separate retail incentive covers, for example of that. The Evan Stanley cover, showing Sonic chilling with Blaze and Tangle, is probably my favorite. And at least Jon Gray resists temptation to pack his cover full of as many faces as possible, stopping at a reasonable (for him) collage of Sonic and friends. The main cover is a gate-fold of Tyson Hesse's four covers for the series' initial story arc. Which is pretty neat, if uncreative. I don't really love any of the regular covers, to be honest. Yardley's cover, of Sonic and Tails posing at sunrise, is dramatically lit but pretty generic otherwise. The same is true of Matt Herms' cover. Jen Hernandez at least puts a little personality into her cover of Sonic and Knuckles interacting with some wisps. I guess a little more eccentricity is what I hoped for from these covers, instead of just classic images of Sonic and the gang looking marketable. 

I definitely said way too much about a glorified reprint like this. I guess I can't help but get long-winded when going into retrospective mode. I don't know if the back-up story is notable enough to make this whole comic worth picking up, unless you're an absolute “Sonic” completest like me. I'm doubtful this story will be all that important going for. But it is an interesting walk down memory lane, to revisit the first issue and then read a brand new story. Really puts into sharp focus how far IDW has come since its launch. [6/10]