Archie Sonic Issue #11

 

What a dumb, silly cover. What a sweet, innocent, ADORABLE little cover. If it only knew the horrors it was about to unleash upon the world...

If you're just joining me for the first time, you may well be asking, "what's the big deal? Looks like just some goofy old Sonic comic to me." And on some level, I suppose you're right. The issue we're looking at today is pretty par for the course in terms of the Archie Sonic Gag Era that it's a part of, with just a couple short stories filled with cartoon silliness and little in terms of deeper storytelling. But make no mistake, this ISN'T just any other Sonic comic. For you see, my friends...

"He's here."

"Who?"

"The Penders..."

Yes, this issue marks the writing debut of none other than Ken Penders, the single most notorious Sonic comic writer even to this day. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Archie Sonic has no doubt stumbled on his name at some point, and heard the infamous tales of endless echidna bloodlines, "mature" content that should NEVER have found its way into a children's comic, and real-world legal drama that still affects the larger Sonic brand even to this very day. In fact, there are some people out there with the mistaken impression that EVERYTHING about Archie Sonic is to be directly attributed to Penders... which is such an infuriating oversimplification to me. Not only does it undermine the creative work of everyone else involved with this comic, but it also turns away potential newcomers to this series who don't want to be associated with Penders's weirdness in any meaningful way.

Make no mistake, though. Despite how much people exaggerate his influence (including Penders himself), there is absolutely no denying that his presence will have a profound impact on the book going forward. It will be a slow process, but over the next 20-40 issues depending on who you ask, his growing presence will cause a dramatic shift from the goofy slapstick and one-off stories started by Mike Gallagher into a more serious overarching narrative. For better and for worse, things are about to get MUCH more interesting from here on out. 

Now, that just leaves one major question:

Thankfully, we're in luck, because much like with Mike Gallagher, we actually have an account straight from Penders himself about how his work on Archie Sonic began. AND BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING, LET ME BE CLEAR: I am NOT about to take every word this man says about his work as the gospel truth. I've already mentioned this at least once before, but there are plenty of examples over the years of him twisting, distorting, or outright changing the facts on some things to defend his work and deflect criticism. Believe me, we'll get to some of those down the road, and it will NOT be pretty. That being said, I've looked this particular anecdote over, and it checks out for me. It lines up with what I've understood about the creative process of this book for a while now, and I honestly see no reason for him to be deceitful about this. 

The post I found on this was EXTREMELY long winded, which... if you know the way Penders writes his Knuckles stories down the road, shouldn't be all that surprising. And it comes directly from the official Ken Penders website. Yes, the man has his own site, and I went digging into it for this information. Don't ever accuse me of not doing nice things for you people.

The gist of it is that someone on the Archie staff, looking for more writers on the still new and growing book at the time, reached out to Mike Kanterovich, another comic writer and close friend of Penders. He in turn reached out to Penders, wondering if he had any knowledge about Sonic and could maybe help him out. As it so happened, Penders's son had become a diehard fan of the comic, picking up every single new issue as it came out, and so Penders did in fact have a rough idea of what it was like at the time. The duo met up and got to work, forming a writing partnership that would last for the first couple of years of Penders's tenure before Mike K moved on to greener pastures. 

Now the reason I mention all of this, aside from my stated goal towards the beginning of this blog of making sure you were aware of the full behind-the-scenes story here, is to give you a better picture and understanding of this infamous man BEFORE diving into any of his work. There are a lot of people out there who have this cartoon image in their mind of Ken Penders with an evil twirling mustache as he sucks all the fun and joy out of the Sonic franchise, but as with many things, the truth is far more nuanced than that. There are plenty of things you can (and I most certainly WILL) criticize him for, both in his writing and in his moral character, but at the end of the day, we should remember the fact that he's still a human being. Before all of the insanity, he was just a simple comic writer who wanted to do something nice for his kid and happened to hit the proverbial jackpot. 

And if I'm being honest... he was kind of a necessary evil, at least at the start. I've made no secret of the fact that these early issues haven't really been doing it for me, and SOMEONE needed to kick start an actual ongoing plot if this book was going to leave any kind of lasting impact. Again, not excusing some of his later behavior, I'm just saying. Not EVERYTHING he wrote was some great, horrible atrocity, and I'm going to do my due diligence to give each and every one of his stories as fair of a shake as I can... though, again, there will be times where I simply won't be able to show him any kind of mercy, but I digress.

*Phew* OK, I know that was by far the longest introduction I've done so far, but I felt like I needed to lay all those cards out on the table to give us a solid foundation here. Let's finally dive into Penders's first Archie Sonic story, with the absolutely hysterical title:

"The Good, The Bad, and The Hedgehog!" The Sonic Franchise: A Summary

Alright, so 3 interesting things to note here:

1. We're still in that awkward in-between phase I mentioned last issue regarding the artwork and Sonic's design. We've got Dave Manak on pencils and Art Mawhinney on inks again, but we've switched back to mohawk Sonic this time. Meanwhile, there's another story later where Art fully takes over, and we switch over to the typical Classic Sonic. It's a small thing, but still, it's weird.

2. I actually really like the panel on the bottom right of Sonic having just wrapped up a fight with the S6 Squad. Not only is it a fun use of continuity, but it also goes a long way towards selling the conflict between Sonic and Robotnik. Robotnik's influence causes danger to spread all over the world, and yet Sonic is just fast enough to keep up with it all. Good stuff.

3. Sadly, new writers also means new opportunities to forget Bunnie exists, so she's going to be taking another hiatus for this entire issue. I know I said I would try not to bring that up too often, but this is getting ridiculous. It's not like her presence would affect this story one way or the other anyway, so what gives?

But hey, so far, pretty standard stuff for the Gag Era. Robotnik causing problems, Sonic running to solve them, goofy editorial bits, the whole shebang. I mean, it's not like Penders is just going to casually introduce something world shattering right out of the gate, like the entire concept of the multiverse. I mean, that would be-

Well, alright then. 

Yes, 2 pages into his first story, Penders just casually decides to throw in one of the most bonkers, reality-altering additions one can EVER add to a fictional setting, with the introduction of alternate dimensions and parallel universes. Even crazier, he technically does so through the use of actual Sonic game lore, using "zones" as the terminology both for the entrance to the Cosmic Interstate linking them together, and later, for the different universes themselves. 

Now of course, this immediately causes some confusion, because there are already zones like the one Al and Cal reside in that are more "pocket dimensions" than entirely parallel realities, and the rules for entering them is completely different than what we see here. But to Penders's credit, he IS actually consistent when it comes to THESE types of zones, at least from what I recall. Generally speaking, if you're traveling between parallel universes in one of his stories, you're using the Cosmic Interstate to do so. As for why Sonic is able to enter and exit it so freely, that's a question for another time... with an absolutely ludicrous answer that doesn't actually explain jack squat, but we're getting WAY ahead of ourselves, so let's just see where this road takes us for now.

                                    We were on a highway, I had to do it

After making a wrong turn and desperately trying to correct it to no avail (relatable), Sonic winds up on what he THINKS is Mobius, only to take one look inside this building and realize something is VERY wrong. Robotnik is working as a vet helping little woodland creatures rather than putting them into robots... and yet, for some bizarre reason, still has black and red eyes of pure evil. I know this is the Gag Era and I'm probably being too critical here, but like... I feel like asking your good guy version of Robotnik to look like an actual GOOD GUY isn't too big of an ask. Thankfully, it seems future writers/artists agree with me, and this Robotnik's design will get a major overhaul later, but it's still really weird here. 

And yeah, in case it wasn't already obvious what's going on in this story, not even 2 whole seconds after Sonic runs out of here in confusion, he runs into one of Penders's most controversial creations to date: Evil Sonic.

He's Sonic, but evil. Shocking, I know.

Now, the reason I say he's "controversial" is... well, it's complicated, and this review is already getting long enough as is, so I won't get TOO lost in the weeds here. Basically, despite the potential that the concept of an "Evil Sonic" presents, he spends his entire tenure under Penders's run as little more than a dorky side villain with absolutely no menace whatsoever. The only exception to this occurs right as Penders was close to leaving the book... but the way he goes about making Evil Sonic "dangerous" is so disgusting and awful that it's going to be REAL hard to keep this blog family friendly when I get to it (though I'll still do my best). It's BAD, y'all.

But then, the INSTANT Ian Flynn takes over, he worked with the rest of the Archie staff to turn this borderline unusable antagonist into Scourge, who is FAR more interesting and iconic, becoming one of the greatest dark horse comebacks in the history of the franchise... whom Penders insists that he owns due to winning his legal battles, even though the Scourge redesign had nothing to do with him. I admit I'm no lawyer and I don't know the details, but in my entirely unprofessional opinion, that's absolute nonsense and he should be thanking Ian and Patrick Spaziante every day for the fact that people even CARE enough about this guy to argue about it, but I know he never will.

So yeah, messy comic history with high highs and extremely low lows across 2 separate versions of the same character, both of whom are now floating in copyright limbo for all eternity. That's our boy right here.

As for his role in THIS story, there honestly isn't that much to say. He explains the whole concept of this reverse Anti-Mobius to Sonic (which confuses me a bit, because you'd think Sonic would understand the existence of parallel universes already if he apparently runs on the Cosmic Interstate semi-regularly), and then the 2 of them just kind of race around a bit before Sonic lures him back to the Anti-Robotnik and has him all tied up. Also yes, I DID try saying that sentence at the top right 5 times fast as a kid, and it's the easiest thing ever. Dr. Seuss books have tougher tongue twisters than you, Evil Sonic. Get better.

Then Sonic gets a scooping device from Anti-Robotnik, which removes our Robotnik's toxic sludge in seconds, ending the story on a rather anticlimactic note. But the real reason I chose to show this page in particular is for the very top left panel referencing "The Phantom Zone". This, along with one of the roads being literally called "Lois Lane", marks the beginning of a VERY common trend in Penders's stories of riffing on mainstream superhero comics. It's cute right now, but believe me, it's going to get way more absurd than that down the road.

But yeah, so ends Penders's very first Archie Sonic story (and Kanterovich too, lest we forget). And it's... actually not bad? Dare I say it's pretty decent, given the standards of the time? 

See, this is exactly what I was saying before. Regardless of Penders's more... insidious moments... he's not the devil, guys. He's capable of writing something totally silly and harmless like this... or at least, he used to be, once upon a time. And as bonkers as it is to open the multiverse can of worms this early in the game, at least he's TRYING to expand this book in a meaningful way. Honestly, even the fact that Evil Sonic is kind of pathetic right now doesn't bother me too much, because it's the Gag Era and he isn't really meant to be anything special just yet. It's not exactly a groundbreaking masterpiece, but among its contemporaries, it actually emerges as one of the better stories we've looked at so far in my opinion. 

Now here's where things shake up ever so slightly, because with Gallagher's goofy one-off strips fully exorcised from the book by now, there's been some extra page space freed up for the actual stories. As a result of this and also probably the advent of new writers, this issue is the first to experiment with the idea of cramming 3 stories into a single comic. This next story is lacking in credits, and no matter how much I've looked it over, I can't give any definitive answer on who wrote it unfortunately, though I CAN say with certainty that it has Manak's signature artstyle. So, let's not waste any more time and jump into:

"Beat The Clock!"

Actually, before I go into this one, I must say, as the self-appointed king of the Sonic Storybook Series defenders, I will always associate the title "Beat the Clock" with the missions from those games. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how many times I died on those as a kid... until I got good and learned how to beat them, and now as an adult I can win no problem, because yes, these games ARE playable and they CAN BE FUN IF YOU WOULD JUST-

Sorry, sorry. I've just been REALLY antsy about this lately for whatever reason. Maybe someday, more people will give these games a chance and I can finally be at peace.

                                      WHO'S GONNA ROCK THE PLACE, PLACE, PLACE?

Anyway yeah, this story centers on Coconuts, the runt of the S6 Squad, desperately trying to make a name for himself by being the one Badnik to successfully defeat Sonic where all the others failed. Don't ask how he and this one SWAT-Bot managed to tie the Freedom Fighters to these explosives or why Bunnie was left out of the party once again. The story's only 5 pages long, and it ain't got time for logical questions like that when it's too busy throwing Sonic into mazes for kids to draw on and ruin their issue's long-term resale value. 

Really, the only noteworthy thing that happens here is the brief Sonic-Sally ship tease towards the end, with Sally admitting her love for Sonic when it looks like all hope is lost. I know I mentioned this before, but it's weird how much future eras insist they were never upfront about their feelings for each other when they each make some proud love declaration every other issue. 

Then, Lancelot comes charging forward, shouting "TIME TO FLY!"-

-No wait, that was the Storybook games again. My bad. (OK fine, Black Knight has been making a SLIGHT comeback in the fandom in recent years, but it's still not enough for my liking. Please give these games a fair shot, I beg of you.)

No, Sonic just comes charging through as usual, and Coconut's bomb ends up exploding in his face, ending the most nothingburger story we've had in quite a while.  If it weren't for the story's title activating the Storybook defense mechanism hidden in a dark corner of my brain, I genuinely don't know if I would've had anything to say about this one. 

Our last story is another short 5-pager, with Mike Kanterovich and Ken Penders at the helm once again, and Art Mawhinney fully taking over the artwork once again. Let's see if this one will actually provide me with some actual substance...

"Food For Thought"? OK, I didn't mean it like THAT!

So uh, this story... it's... certainly something, alright. The starting premise is pretty whatever, just Sonic grabbing a late midnight snack and eating a little too much... but then, we suddenly enter into a dream sequence, and, uh...

And Sonic... is a chili dog now? And Sally is an ice cream cone? And... HUH!?

Welp, didn't think I'd be busting this out as early as Penders's very first issue, but I guess I forgot just how early this story was in his run. I thought it would be at least a COUPLE before he went completely off the rails, but oh well. Let's bring up our brand new, handy dandy:

UNHINGED PENDERS WRITING COUNTER!

Each time I come across a moment under Penders that I find to be completely, off-the-walls INSANE, I'll be using this bad boy to tally each and every one, adjusting the points as I see fit depending on just how utterly bonkers I personally find a particular moment to be. I'll try to contain this to singular moments like this one, but there may be special cases down the road where an entire issue warrants being added to the scoreboard, and I'll inflate the numbers accordingly. Since even I haven't properly read every last one of his stories front to back, I can't say for certain where the score will be by the time he ends his run on the book. But if I were a gambling man, I'd wager he makes it to at LEAST triple, if not quadruple digits by the time all the points are added up. 

Since this is our first of such instances, and I already know for a fact that it's one of the tamest instances out there (yes, you read that right, BUCKLE UP), I'll be generous and just throw a single point on here for now. I won't always be this nice.

UNHINGED PENDERS WRITING COUNTER: 1

Anyway, here's an absolutely cursed page depicting Robotnik as a burger and Tails as French Fries. Sleep well tonight, I know I certainly won't.

Thankfully, this literal and figurative nightmare comes to a close just as quickly as it began, since it was all just a dream, and the issue ends with Sonic refusing to learn his lesson and eating even more chili dogs. So, nothing was accomplished, no one learned anything, and the reader has just witnessed something horrific that they can never unsee no matter how hard they try. That's Ken Penders for you!

     Helen is going to be all of us collectively witnessing what this man does to Knuckles in the future

On that terrifying hint of the utter madness that has yet to come, we end our very first Ken Penders Archie Sonic issue. The first story was a somewhat decent endeavor that expanded the lore of the book in an admittedly big way, but the second and third stories dragged things down with an empty void and pure nightmare fuel respectively. All in all, it's certainly one of the more... INTERESTING issues we've looked at so far, but in terms of quality, it's pretty on par with the rest.

Tune in next time as we see the world of Mobius continue to expand, and Sonic takes a trip... BACK IN TIME!