Archie Sonic Issue #0 (Original Miniseries)

 

Pretty solid for a first issue cover, I'd say. Normally I'm not too crazy about putting a lot of text on a comic cover, but I think the little yellow blurb at the bottom does a good job explaining what exactly this book is all about without taking up too much space. Using the iconic Green Hill aesthetic was also a smart move to help get the point across, even if its current overuse in the modern era has me beyond tired of seeing it. (Sega, if you put Green Hill OR Chemical Plant in the next game AGAIN, so help me-)

Anyway, before I dive into this very first issue of Archie Sonic, I think it's important to establish some context. When Archie first got their license for publishing Sonic comics from Sega in 1992, the Sonic franchise as a whole was practically in its infancy. The original game had come out and taken the world by storm, with Sonic 2 releasing just a month before this issue, but as far as story material goes, they didn't really offer a whole lot to build a comic off of. This is the entirety of what these first 2 games gave Archie to work with: Eggman builds robots. Sonic smashes the robots. Tails is also here. 

In other words, they had:

Thankfully, Sega was aware of this problem, and so when making plans for Sonic to become the hit multimedia franchise it is today, they allowed for a TON of creative freedom for each respective branch to get cooking. By the time Archie got involved, there were already 2 animated shows that were in the early stages of development from which they could build their own universe:

1. The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, your typical goofy, slapstick comedy like a lot of old-school cartoons back in the day. 

2. Sonic SatAM, a much more serious show where Robotnik has already taken over most of the planet "Mobius" and Sonic works with a group of "Freedom Fighters" to fight back against his tyranny.

It's hard to know exactly how far into development either of these shows were at the time but based on what this first issue has to offer us, I can say with confidence that they definitely hadn't nailed everything down yet. In fact, this issue actually predates both shows by several months, so they almost certainly still had some bugs to iron out. The end result of all this confusion leads to Archie Sonic beginning as a sort of bizarre mixture of both shows. It has the world and characters of SatAM, but with the tone and story structure of Adventures, plus the occasional game element thrown in for good measure. So even from its inception, this book was destined to become something really, really weird.

Alright, with all that out of the way, let's dive right in, with our first story:

"Don't Cry For Me, Mobius!"

OK right off the bat, there's a TON to talk about here. 

First of all, we start right off with the exact scenario shown on the cover (which is rare for these early issues), with Robotnik in his classic pod from the games chasing after Sonic. We've also got a nice display of all the characters we're about to meet, divided cleanly into heroes and villains... although I have to say, it is pretty lopsided. The hero cast are all proper, individual characters, while the villainous side is... just Robotnik and some of his Badniks. It would be like if you introduced the original trilogy Star Wars heroes alongside Darth Vader and a few random Stormtroopers.

Also, we can already start to see the effects of not having everything nailed down yet. Robotnik is lacking his signature black and red eyes from either cartoon series, Sally's hair is colored blonde instead of brown, and Rotor is called "Boomer" for some reason. (For simplicity's sake, and to avoid a million "OK Boomer" jokes, I'm going to stick with Rotor.)

Finally, as you can see down at the bottom left corner, the writer for this issue, and for this miniseries as a whole, is Michael Gallagher. Unlike with a lot of this book's early development, we actually do have some concrete information about how he first got involved, straight from the man himself. When this original miniseries was republished in the Sonic Archives over a decade later, he wrote a foreword discussing his history on the comic (which I HIGHLY recommend you go read), and it includes a brief story of how he first got involved. The gist is that he was already working at Archie at the time, and the editor-in-chief saw the kind of characters he had written for in the past and thought he would be a good fit for Sonic's snarky, wisecracking personality. Gallagher had virtually no idea who or what Sonic was when he got the call, but he was very quickly provided some basic character sheets and got to work.

Now, I want to be clear about something. Given everything I've already established about what little he had to work with, and how confusing this early state of the franchise was, the fact that Gallagher was able to come up with enough material for a whole 4-issue miniseries that would go on to establish the main book immediately afterwards is pretty impressive. That being said, when it comes to his overall writing style...

Yeah, I'm not too big of a fan. He seems like a pretty nice guy in real life, so I don't want to be too overly harsh with him, but his style almost never really clicked for me. To give you an idea, let's keep moving with this chase and see if you can spot my problem with him. Robotnik chases Sonic, hoping to cover him in... "mega-muck" (which I THINK is based on the stuff from that water in Chemical Plant but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), until Sonic is briefly stopped in his tracks by a Caterkiller, the bane of every Marble Zone visitor's existence. Having him completely surrounded (lol), Robotnik goes in for the kill...

Did you spot the problem? No? Well, let me explain: my biggest issue with Gallagher, aside from the fact that his jokes on average make me laugh about once every 10 attempts, is that he constantly has the characters over-explaining every single detail of every single panel when we can clearly see it with our eyes. Sonic jumps and does a spin? Let's have Sonic explain that he is, in fact, jumping and spinning. Caterkiller got wrecked? Robotnik angrily looks down and says, "oh no, Caterkiller got wrecked". It's a constant problem, even on Gallagher's best days, and it almost feels like he doesn't trust that kids will have the attention span to understand what's happening unless he explains it down to the tiniest detail.

That being said, the next page does have some actually necessary exposition, with Sonic running to the Great Forest and directly addressing the reader (another staple of Gallagher's writing), explaining that this is where the secret entrance is to Knothole Village, the secret hideaway from Robotnik. There's another bit of "Early-Installment Weirdness" here, as Knothole is depicted as a completely underground cavern rather than a proper "village"... but honestly, that.... kind of makes more sense as a hidden base? If you're just sitting there in a forest, couldn't Robotnik just, in theory, knock down every single tree until he finds you? I say that as a joke, but this is actually a relevant plot point in this particular issue.

So Sonic goes into the entrance in a nearby tree stump, swings through an incredibly wild slide before, and I kid you not, literally "hitting the hay", and is quickly greeted by the other Freedom Fighters, where we get to know a little about them... or at least, the incredibly surface level version of them that Gallagher understands at this point.

So, here's the rundown:

Tails is Sonic's kid sidekick and biggest fan. Sally is the no-nonsense leader and also totally not Sonic's love-interest, why do you ask? Antoine is stuck-up, pompous, and Sonic's favorite target for jokes. Rotor is... the other guy. And of course, Bunnie is-

Wait where is Bunnie? 

Yeah, so... I guess Bunnie must have been the last of the Freedom Fighters to be created or something, because she doesn't show up until Issue 3 of the main book. And come to think of it, Snively is also missing from the villain's side, and he doesn't make a proper appearance until Issue 8. So that's lame.

Anyway, Antoine explains that there's apparently a leak in Knothole, which they need to patch up to avoid either being flooded or possibly located by some new Robotnik tech, so they all head out to the Great Forest, which of course attracts Robotnik's attention, and he seizes the opportunity to go after them. Before he arrives, they discover the source of the leak, which just... get a load of this.

First of all, that was a jerk move, Sonic. What did Antoine ever do to you? 

But yeah, the leak happened because... Robotnik has been tearing down trees in the forest trying to find Knothole (told you it would be relevant), and so the other trees in the forest have been... "crying over their fallen friends".

I have SEVERAL questions. 

First, how in the world did you deduce that one, Sonic? Second, how and why are the trees in the forest sentient, and why is this completely ridiculous and insane bit of lore never brought up again for the rest of this comic's existence? Third, if Robotnik is dead set on finding Knothole and perfectly capable of demolishing trees left and right, why are there ANY trees still standing at this point? 

And thus, we have reached our very first instance of completely unhinged Archie Sonic weirdness. This is absolutely bonkers, and it doesn't even scratch the Top 100 most absurd things this comic will do. But that's why I love it.

The rest of the story goes about how you'd expect. Robotnik shows up, chases Sonic with his mobile AGAIN, although I will give props for using the classic wrecking ball from the original game this time around. Then, Sonic races to a well, where he hid one of his Power Rings for a special occasion. Now, in SatAM's continuity, rather than just protecting Sonic from damage, rings help give him a temporary power boost for a convenient deus ex machina when he's in a bind. And that's... SORT OF what happens here?

I don't recall any rings being able to make Robotnik's weapons self-destruct like that, but trust me, this will NOT be the stupidest thing that we see them do in this book's run.

The story ends with the Freedom Fighters planting new saplings to... make the trees stop crying (still not over that), Rotor decides to be a jerk to Antoine for no reason (how did he manage to bury his entire body into the ground so easily?) and this incredibly bizarre first story ends... but we're not done just yet. A lot of Archie Sonic, particularly in the early years, had a habit of splitting their 20 pages across 2 separate stories, so we still have another one to run through before we wrap up. This second story is titled:

"Oh No-Robo! No Mo' Mobo!" Rolls right off the tongue.

This story essentially serves as a flashback to explain how Robotnik took over Mobius and Sonic's personal stakes in stopping him. It's here where we're introduced to 2 more incredibly important SatAM characters: Uncle Chuck and Muttski.

So as this page establishes, Uncle Chuck is, well, Sonic's uncle, who invented his iconic sneakers to handle his speed and gave him his life-long love of chili dogs. Meanwhile, Muttski is Sonic's pet dog in a sort of "Mickey and Pluto" situation, which is actually pretty fitting since Mickey Mouse was one of the inspirations behind Sonic's design.

While Uncle Chuck and Sonic are celebrating getting a call for 200 chili dogs (just thinking about how much work that would take has me exhausted on their behalf), we finally get to see just how Robotnik accomplished his sinister take over!... by just... sending out a robot with a flyer that says, "I'm in charge now." 

(OK yes, we do actually see him beginning to invade on literally the next page, but... come on, the joke was right there, I had to do it.) 

Actually, on the topic of Robotnik's takeover, I will go ahead and say that he is one character where Gallagher's humor generally works for me. He really goes all in on making Robotnik one of the most over-the-top, petty villains in existence, and I honestly don't have a lot of complaints. Like, just in these next couple of pages, look at what he does:

First, he arrests Uncle Chuck, not for anything that might be a threat to him, like his inventing skills challenging Robotnik's brilliance, but because he dared to show an ounce of happiness. And then he takes Muttski for good measure, because why not?

THEN, it turns out he was the one who ordered those 200 chili dogs, all so he could lure out Sonic the delivery boy to get flattened like a pancake. Keep in mind, Robotnik doesn't even KNOW Sonic at this point. When they meet later, Robotnik simply refers to him as "another hedgehog". He has no idea how powerful or dangerous Sonic is to him whatsoever. He just thought it would be really funny to prank whatever poor delivery boy Uncle Chuck sent and then murder him in the most absurdly dramatic fashion possible. It's fantastic. 10/10, no notes.

So anyway, Sonic then runs back to the chili dog stand, finds out Uncle Chuck and Muttski have been taken, fights the Swat-Bots who are over there trashing the place, and finds out that they were built by Robotnik Inc., the same place that just stiffed and almost killed him. He then runs back over to the factory and makes a brief 4th-wall breaking comment comparing himself to the Flash, which has aged hilariously since, well... you know.

Just as he's about to dive in, he's stopped by Princess Sally, who explains that she's here because her father, King Acorn, has also been taken and she's here to help rescue him. She takes Sonic to Robotnik's factory through a shortcut, where they find Uncle Chuck, Muttski, and a ton of other civilians into robots... or at least, that's what I'm told, because these don't look like robots to me.

I really don't know how they messed this up. All they did was make these 2 look hypnotized. Thankfully, by the time of the main book they fix this, but this is an error that shouldn't even have been there in the first place. They're supposed to be robots, so why do they not look like it?

Brushing past that annoying detail, Sonic creates a giant tornado to send Robotnik and his Swat-Bots flying, runs off with Sally, and heads to the Great Forest, where he joins the Freedom Fighters, and we close the book on this first issue.

So, with our first issue finished, what's my final verdict?

Yeah, it's definitely not perfect, partly due to the limitations of what Gallagher had to work with and partly because of his own writing being incredibly hit-or-miss with the humor, but as far as setting the stage and introducing this universe, it does get the job done. Plus, as much as I ragged on Gallagher's overuse of exposition, given the nature of this issue as an introduction to the entire comic, I'll give him a bit more of a pass on that this time around.

Also, I didn't comment on this until now because I wasn't sure of where to mention it, but the artwork is on point throughout the whole thing. The artist for this issue and for most of this original miniseries is Scott Shaw, and aside from the problem of not working with finalized designs for all the characters (which isn't exactly his fault), he nails the cartoony vibe Gallagher is going for perfectly, with some really solid artwork showcasing Sonic's speed as dynamically as still images can allow.

Overall, not a bad start. I still to this day have no idea why they numbered it "Issue 0", and I've accepted the fact that I probably never will.