Archie Sonic Issue #7

Well, just after the last 2 covers were starting to move in the right direction and actually advertise the stories inside, it seems we've fallen right back into the "completely unrelated gag" shtick. Also Sonic, that's not speed reading, that's property damage. Your library fees are about to go WAY up.

I don't really have a whole lot to say in terms of an introduction this time around. Where the last few issues have all introduced something new into the mix to shake things up (a new character, a new writer, a new game, etc.), this one is... just sort of business as usual for the Archie Sonic Gag Era. We've got 2 stories to go through here, so let's not waste any time and get right to it, starting with:

"Uncle Chuck's Treasure!"

As you can see from the credits, we have our relatively fresh face Angelo DeCesare at the helm once again. And much like the rickety seesaw Tails has set up here (which, come to think of it, might be the first sign of his future child genius status?), Angelo's writing quality thus far has swung up and down quite violently. Issue 5 was actually a reasonably fun debut for him by the standards of early Archie Sonic, but he REALLY took the wind out of my sails with that miserable Christmas Carol parody last time. I want to hope for something good here, but Sonic's awful pun and Rotor's uncharacteristically silly behavior on this first page isn't getting us off to the best start.

As Tails falls back down, the hole he made in the ceiling drops down a map labeled for "Uncle Chuck's Greatest Treasure", hence the story's title. Weirdly, Sonic has to explain this to Rotor, who mistakenly thinks it's a Connect the Dots puzzle even though it's very visibly a map and has both a title and various locations written out in plain English. Isn't Rotor supposed to be the smart one?

Anyway, the Freedom Fighters aren't all too keen on treasure at first, as Robotnik's evil reign has caused mass inflation and made money virtually worthless (social commentary!), but Sonic insists that it's worth looking into, and not just because this is his own uncle he's talking about. He points out that Chuck was perhaps the greatest inventor on Mobius before Robotnik caught him, and so maybe this secret treasure has some sort of hidden power that can help them defeat Robotnik for good. OK, that makes sense-

*sigh*... I know, I know, this is going to be insanely nitpicky, but... I'm sorry, this just doesn't add up. Let's ignore the quite literal gaping plot hole of how this map randomly found its way into Knothole and just look at the timeline of events here. How on Mobius did Uncle Chuck have the time, energy, and resources to go out and bury a treasure for Sonic somewhere in the middle of Robotnik's rather sudden, hostile takeover? The flashback we saw in Issue 0 of the mini-series gave him literally 0 prep time for such an occurrence, and even if we take into account all the various retcons to that story later on, there's still virtually NO WAY he could have gone out and done this given the insanely chaotic upheaval he's shown to be caught up in. 

Whatever. It's just a goofy comic right now, they didn't know how complicated things would be, and I'm reading way too deep, I get it. So, let's just see if the story itself is fun enough for me to overlook this rather blatant continuity error.

OK, this is actually a fun little surprise. Uncle Chuck's map takes the Freedom Fighters to the Mobius Natural Park, once a rather lively environment, that has since been turned into a wasteland by Robotnik's industrialization. Not only does this make this area much more hostile to traverse, but it's actually one of our earliest Archie examples of the "nature vs. industry" theme that remains a constant in the Sonic franchise. Between this and the 2 SWAT-Bots here actually scouting ahead and gathering intel, we once again have Angelo doing a solid job making Robotnik seem like a credible, semi-competent threat. 

And I would be remiss if I didn't point out this bit with Tails on the next page, because it's actually REALLY funny:

Something about his bright, cheerful optimism at seeing a tiny flower that managed to endure this harsh environment just for Robotnik to immediately show up and dash his hopes is so ridiculously cruel that I can't help but laugh at it. Maybe that's a sign that I have serious issues, but then again, the fact that I'm writing this obsessive blog in the first place should have been a MUCH bigger red flag in that regard.

But yeah, Robotnik is here now with his Badniks, and now the Freedom Fighters are actually in a rather tight spot. They've already been exposed to this toxic environment, and the longer they stay here, the more Robotnik can wear them down. In order to save everyone, Sonic decides to see if he can use the environment to his advantage, and we get a quick little montage of him doing just that. First, he tricks a Burrobot going after Tails into slamming itself straight into an acid barrel, melting itself on impact. Then, he distracts a couple of SWAT-Bots going after Rotor by... doing a pitch-perfect impression of Robotnik?

I don't want to dwell TOO hard on this, especially since I actually kind of like Sonic's overall strategy here, but between this and Rotor's disguise back in Issue 3, we now have 2 different Freedom Fighters who can completely fool his minions with a trick voice. Is he really THAT easy to imitate, or are his robots just stupid? Either way, it's weird.

Anyway, he then runs over to Sally and uses an oil spill to evade a nearby Buzzbomber as it crashes into hard, unforgiving rock. The Freedom Fighters all reunite and dig up the treasure, with Sally remarking what a "great feat" it was for Sonic to beat all those Badniks. This causes Sonic to momentarily pause and think, which gives Robotnik just the distraction he needs to snatch up the treasure and head off.

Hearing this music while the Olympics announcer screamed "YOU LOSE!" in my face was a genuinely traumatic experience for 7-year-old me every single time it happened. Kids today have it so soft.

Thankfully, it turns out to be no big deal, as Sally's "feat" comment reminded Sonic that the real treasure was the friends we made along the way- or rather, that HE was Uncle Chuck's treasure all along. So, despite Robotnik technically getting his first victory on record, it's completely meaningless, as all he got was a bronze statue of Sonic's sneakers. It's a cute enough ending on its own, and made funnier in hindsight due to the existence of Sonic Riders many years later, which virtually ends EXACTLY the same way, albeit with a significantly less mundane magic carpet. This poor doctor really can't catch a break with buried treasure, huh?

So, how are we feeling after that? Did Angelo rise back up after his previous performance?

OK, maybe it's not "total redemption", but it's WAY better than whatever that... THING was last time. Robotnik is back to being the same competent threat from the Olympics story, with an actual demonstration of the negative impact he's had on the world, and technically his first real win. The setting we were in was also a decent change of pace, forcing Sonic to be creative and use the terrain to his advantage. Also, aside from the puns that remains sadly prevalent, the humor was still noticeably less painful than average, with at least one joke that got me pretty good. This story may not leave a lasting impact, but in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty harmless.

Unfortunately, this next story has no credits, and try as I might, I couldn't come to any definitive evidence one way or the other on it being Angelo or our old pal Mike Gallagher. So much like Issue 5, I'm just going to assume Angelo is pulling double duty once again. Let's see if he can start to build a solid streak here with:

"Sorceress in Distress"

Alright, let's just rip this band-aid right off: Archie Comics apparently has no idea what order to release holiday stories in. Last issue, we had a Christmas Carol parody released right at the start of October 1993, at the height of Spooky Season. And now this issue, released in November, we have a story with the Freedom Fighters all dressed up for Halloween...so I guess you could say... we're going Back in Time? 

SO TAKE ME BACK IN TIIIIIIIIIIIME

Putting aside the confusing out-of-universe holiday scheduling, I have to say this first page is not off to a great start with Sally's attitude here. I briefly touched on this problem once before way back during the original miniseries, but since this is sadly the first story in a good while where she actually has real plot relevance, I might as well bring it up again.

I think that Princess Sally is one of the best Sonic characters ever... when she's written correctly. And unfortunately, for many, MANY issues of Archie Sonic pre-Ian Flynn, it honestly feels like a total coin toss at times on whether or not that actually happens. The reasons for this vary wildly from writer to writer and become more complicated as the comic itself expands over time, but for this early Gag Era, the main problem I have is a rather straightforward one. Where SatAM established her as the strong, capable leader of the Freedom Fighters, and perhaps the only person capable of keeping Sonic's ego in check, the early writers at Archie seemed to focus almost exclusively on that second part and reduce her to "Sonic's nagging girlfriend". As we'll quickly see in this story, it doesn't exactly make for a very likeable depiction of her character.

Case in point: Sally is choosing to go out into the Great Forest, where Robotnik has very frequently caught the Freedom Fighters off guard as far back as the very first issue of this entire series, without ANYONE to follow her whatsoever. When Sonic and Antoine rightfully point out the potential danger, she then has the gall to accuse them of babysitting her as if she's somehow above their concern and issues an authoritative COMMAND not to interfere... all for the sake of grabbing a random stick she can pretend is a wand for Halloween.

Oh, but it gets worse. Right as she finds her oh so precious stick to play pretend with, a nearby geyser shoots a rock up in the air, making her believe that her stick really IS magic after all... because I guess the possibility of it being a random coincidence just never occurs to her for some reason. More importantly, though, just as her friends had correctly warned, Robotnik was in fact watching... but I doubt ANY of them could have guessed he would react like THIS:

*sigh*... yup, this is real. Robotnik, for some bizarre, unexplained reason, not only fails to recognize one of his mortal enemies for the sole reason that she's wearing a Halloween costume... he also believes her to be a genuine, evil sorceress... whom he instantly falls in love with and wants to marry on the spot.

Let's ride past the enormous wave of cringe that we all just collectively felt and look at this situation from a purely logical perspective. This is not only ridiculously stupid even by this era's standards, but also just INSANELY out of character for Robotnik. I don't necessarily think he's entirely incapable of emotional depth, but romance is where I draw a firm, hard line. I simply refuse to believe a man this egotistical and self-centered would EVER have the capacity to love someone else like this. As far as I'm concerned, his love is restricted solely for himself, and maybe a sort of twisted fatherly love for some of his more prized creations, but certainly not anything like THIS. This is just wrong on SO many levels.

Thankfully, Sonic had the foresight to ignore Sally's incredibly short-sighted order from before, and he stealthily follows as Robotnik drags her off to Robotropolis... even though I'm pretty sure one surprise Spin Dash would have been enough to knock the doctor clean into next week and free her, but oh well. He then somehow manages to assemble his entire robot army to watch the proceedings, and even has a special device set up to do the honors for him... and I guess Sonic just sat back behind that curtain for who knows how long while all this set-up was taking place? Mr. "Gotta Go Fast" himself just sat there quietly and patiently during that whole stretch of time? Is... is ANYONE written in line with their established characterization in this story? 

Whatever. Before the wedding can proceed, Robotnik demands that Sally demonstrate her magical prowess to his minions to confirm that what he saw before wasn't a fluke. Because as we all know, in any marital relationship, the wife must always acquiesce to her husband's selfish demands on penalty of death if she fails to comply. That's a perfectly healthy marriage if I've ever seen one. (I joke, but unfortunately, this is FAR from the last "uncomfortable" relationship of this nature that we'll see in Archie Sonic. I'll just leave it at that for now, and we'll cross that miserable bridge when we get to it.)

Sonic is having none of this, of course, and proceeds to make sure Robotnik suffers exactly the type of humilation he's seeking to avoid... in about the most confusing, deus ex machina way imaginable:

Yeah, that's right. You thought that Sonic was just faster than the speed of sound? Joke's on you, because in THIS universe, Sonic can just casually go beyond the speed of light to such a degree that no one can even register his presence! 

Now I know what you're probably thinking. SURELY our good friend Angelo didn't just pull this borderline universe breaking power out of nowhere for the sake of a one-off gag, right? A fair question... to which I would simply reply, "you have clearly never heard of Force Speed before".

 Disclaimer: The Star Wars prequels are incredible, but I DO think this particular bit was a little random. I am allowed to say George Lucas is a brilliant storyteller while also acknowledging the man isn't perfect.

So yeah, Sonic pulls this ridiculously broken ability out of thin air and completely humiliates Robotnik in front of all his minions and then escapes with Sally while the doctor seethes at her "betrayal". Man, I sure hope after all that she's learned her lesson and is ready to apologize-

-why do I even bother? Of COURSE that isn't what happens. Clearly the proper way to thank someone for saving you from your own bad decisions is a kiss on the cheek and then BEATING A STICK OVER THEIR HEAD! What a great lesson for all the kids reading this comic, Angelo. I'm sure that will really encourage them to think for themselves and do their best to help their friends in tricky situations.

And that's a wrap on Issue 7, I guess. The first story was uneventful, but a much-needed breath of fresh air after the misery we experienced right before it... only for the second story to drag us right back down into the pit of despair with Sally's obnoxious attitude and Robotnik being a total creep. It wasn't a TERRIBLE time overall, but this is the first issue in a while that I would mark as purely filler content.

Thankfully, the next issue does have a bit more in store for us. Tune in next time as we hype back on the pun-fueled Gallagher Express for the PROPER debut of one Snively Robotnik... as well as Sonic's first ever meetup with Batman. Take THAT, IDW!