A Journey Through Archie Sonic: My Favorite, and Most Frustrating, Story

  Guys, I'm not gonna lie. This is the first issue that I've been actively DREADING getting to since I embarked on this ridiculous quest of mine. I've made no secret of the fact that the early Gag Era of Archie Sonic has hardly ever clicked with me, but generally, I don't find myself hating it all that much. Sure, there's not a lot of substance, the absurd overuse of exposition always felt like it was talking down to me when I read through it as a kid, and 9 out of every 10 jokes fall flat... but it also set the foundation for the rest of this comic that I hold near and dear to my heart, so I can't really bring myself to HATE it. I guess if I had to describe my general feelings on this era as a whole, I'd say I'm more... indifferent to it than anything else. But not this issue, though. This issue is a different beast entirely.  Now, despite how I prefaced this last time, it's NOT because of my eternal, undying hatred for Sonic Spinball, though that c...

This cover is pretty whatever. I'm not necessarily crazy about the plain white background, but the image itself is decent enough in concept and reasonably well-drawn. Also, it does at least advertise the story inside slightly, even if it's just giving a title, so that automatically makes it better than the last couple we've seen here. Before we dive into this issue, we have a major development behind the scenes in need of addressing. For the past 8 issues across the original miniseries and the main book, we've been riding non-stop on the Gallagher Express. However, Issue 5 marks a major turning point for the future of this comic, because for the very first time, we have a brand-new writer on the scene. And that writer is, drum roll please...  Angelo DeCesare! No but seriously, I've tried to find out more about this guy and his work outside of Archie Sonic, and thus far I have yet to find anything resembling solid, concrete information. The best I could find was a cl...

I don't want to start off overly harsh here, but this has to be the most baffling cover I've discussed yet. This is the issue debut of SUPER SONIC, one of the absolute coolest things to come out of the Classic Sonic games, and instead of prominently advertising that front and center, you waste your quite literally golden opportunity on a joke that I had to go over multiple times as a kid before it even made sense. Come on, guys. Yes, much like last issue, while we're still firmly in the Gag Era of Archie Sonic, we're also seeing the introduction of several key characters and concepts to add to the ever-expanding world of Mobius. Issue 3 saw us rounding out our Freedom Fighter crew with the introduction of Bunnie, and in this issue, we get our very first taste of Sonic's transformation into Super Sonic. I will admit, as much as I don't love this era overall, I do have to give it credit for setting the foundation of this comic, shaky though it may have been. There...