Archie Sonic Issue #12

 

Wow, this cover managed to predict the flaming piano AND "cook minute rice in 58 seconds". 2 internet memes for the price of 1. Seriously Manak, between this and Issue 10, how are you doing that? Do you just randomly go into a trance while drawing these covers and see glimpses of the future or something?

Anyway, the setup for this issue is a rather interesting one. Just like last time, we've got 3 stories to get through, with the first being the longest and the other 2 being on the short end of things, albeit with 7 pages each instead of 5, giving them more wiggle room. However, where this REALLY gets intriguing is in the credits; where last issue was pretty much entirely the Kanterovich/Penders show, each story we're looking at today is presented to us by each of the writers we've met thus far: Gallagher gets the top billing, presumably due to being the first one here, then we get another crack at the new Kanterovich/Penders duo, and finally we wrap things up with our good buddy Angelo. Best of all, ALL 3 of these stories are penciled by Art Mawhinney, who after the back-and-forth of the previous issues has finally settled on the classic Sonic look he'll be using going forward. In short, this will give us a rough idea of how the writers in this era are stacking up to each other, while also presenting us with 20+ pages of sheer artistic beauty. Trust me, you'll look back on the latter statement VERY fondly once we reach the days of Ron Lim and Many Hands.

However, before we jump in, there's another major behind-the-scenes development this issue in need of addressing. You see, up until now, the primary editor on this comic has been a guy named Daryl Edelman, but as of this issue, he's officially stepping out of here for good, and his replacement... hoo boy. Please give a... warm?... welcome to the new editor and future writer... Scott Fulop.

Now you may be wondering, who is this guy, and why am I giving him such an ominous buildup like I gave Penders? Well, going back to that post from Penders I talked about last time, and other places I've looked online over the years, Fulop is essentially THE reason that Penders is going to have the freedom in future issues to go completely off the rails into insanity. It starts off innocent enough with the simple request to steer the comics in a more serious direction, before eventually spiraling into chaos once Penders keeps pushing his boundaries and Fulop makes no effort to stop him. In fact, down the line, Fulop even steps DOWN from his editorial position to start writing and coming up with characters under a pseudonym, which he then (unsuccessfully) sued for a few years after Penders won his case with Archie. Again, I must clarify that this is a gradual process, and it doesn't lead solely to bad things, but if you want someone to blame for allowing Penders to let his crazy side out, this is who to point the finger at.

Or, to put it another way:

"Penders is just a mad dog... I want whoever let him off the leash."

Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's get right into it, starting with our old pal Gallagher in:

"A Timely Arrival!"

Well, you can definitely tell this is a Gallagher story right from the get-go, what with the characters explaining what's going on out loud to no one, the immediate bad pun from Sonic, and Robotnik being portrayed as a completely incompetent threat. I know I've talked about these things ad nauseam by now, but the last one in particular is probably my biggest pet peeve with Gallagher's writing specifically. How am I supposed to be invested in his plotlines when the MAIN VILLAIN acknowledges that he's trapped in a useless, perpetual cycle?

Anyway, Robotnik's "time after time" remark (which immediately calls to mind the song bearing that title, which will now be looping in my head for who knows how long) inspires him to build a time machine to get rid of Sonic... that he somehow manages to fully build inside of an even larger chainsaw machine and drag out into the Great Forest in the time it takes Sonic to run back to Knothole, as it's already being broadcast on live TV the second he shows up. What.

Also, if you're wondering what Sonic and Tails are teasing Sally about in the top left, she was caught watching a soap opera before quickly changing channels, because her character is literally just "girl" in this era. It's annoying, it's a disservice to Sally and her fans, I don't like it, it's a day ending in Y, let's move on before I get a migraine 3 pages in.

As if sensing my displeasure with how this story is going so far, Gallagher then decides to throw a Hail Mary to get back in my good graces by having Robotnik's machine transport Sonic to Dinosaur Jungle a full 13 years before Secret Rings was even a thing. Nice try, Mike, but no dice. The editorial bit correcting Sonic was cute, though.

                                       DINOS! ALL OVER, IT'S A JUNGLE! THE WICKED WILD!

                                       DINOS! ALL OVER, IT'S A JUNGLE! THE WICKED WILD!

After a quick fight with a T-Rex that somehow manages to be even more of a curb stomp battle than fighting the Ghost Rex in Sonic Rush Adventure on Easy Mode, Sonic then runs into his ancestor, Sonugh the Boghog, who is called that because ha ha caveman go ugh and there are bogs here instead of hedges... and then they run afoul of the evil Ivo Robughnik, and... and...

OK I can't deflect with sarcasm anymore, I just need to come out and say it: this story is SO BORING. It's not as infuriatingly bad as the Christmas Carol parody a while back, but it's the most generic, by-the-numbers kids comic storyline Gallagher has written so far by a LONG SHOT. I apologize if my coverage here so far has seemed really off from my usual, but I just can't find ANYTHING to say about this one, short of pointing out one admittedly half-decent gag with Robotnik and Crabmeat in the present that calls to mind a similar joke from a far superior piece of kids' media:

                                           Burgermeister Meisterburger is a national treasure

Seriously, there is actually nothing else to talk about, because the rest of this story goes EXACTLY the way you'd expect. Sonic meets his generation's equivalent of the Freedom Fighters, helps them have the courage to come out of their hiding place and stand up for themselves, then our Freedom Fighters steal Robotnik's time machine and get Sonic back. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL THAT HAPPENS.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad on its own if it was just a dumb, boring, one-off story, but it's actually made even worse in hindsight with future lore that gets added in. You see, there's a villain we're going to meet down the road named Mammoth Mogul, who presumedly hails from the same time period that this era portrays, but when he recounts his early days, there isn't a Freedom Fighter or Robotnik in sight, save for a single random hedgehog that KINDA resembles Sonic. Yet I'm supposed to believe that every generation, there's been this constant struggle between various iterations of the same characters over and over throughout all of Mobian history? (Also, there's the whole Great War thing, but let's not even BEGIN down that rabbit hole or we'll be here forever.) It would be fine if this story was quietly retconned out of existence, but it's NOT! When they do a recap of this entire era down the road, which takes place AFTER Mogul's introduction I might add, this story is referenced as having happened! 

It thankfully doesn't get referenced again past that, but it's just irritating to me that such a glaring contradiction was never fully erased because it feels like such an easy fix. And that's without even mentioning how the time travel here is portrayed as a closed loop whereas Silver ends up changing events Back to the Future style way, WAY down the road from now. It's just such a nothing story that creates so many unnecessary plot holes and contradictions that we're just better off forgetting about.

Also, there's this running gag in the past sections of characters saying, "I'm going to go invent this world-changing invention!", and it's just as lazy and unfunny as it sounds.

But whatever, we're done with that, and despite my previous tangent, these guys never show up again in any meaningful way. Let's all move on with the rest of the issue, and the rest of our lives. Next up:

"The Bold-Headed Eagle!"

The image of Sonic falling off of a cliff with Ken Penders's name tagged in the credits is the single best joke this issue has to offer. Truly the greatest unintentional foreshadowing this comic has done yet.

Anyway, as the title implies, this story involves Sonic coming across an eagle named Cyril, an old man who's been hiding out in the mountains ever since his entire flock was seemingly captured and roboticized by Robotnik, leaving him the last eagle on the planet. This has understandably left him rather dejected and lonely, but Sonic encourages him to try flying again for the first time in years. Predictably, this goes south, but Cyril then runs across some members of his flock that have been free all this time and somehow never found him despite being practically next door. 

Wait a minute... a lone survivor, living away from the rest of society, believing he's the last of his kind, who finds out his species has secretly been thriving all this time... in a story written by Ken Penders... nope, not ringing any alarm bells whatsoever. Definitely not hitting the panic button at how many dreadful omens this story is unwittingly producing or anything.

Whatever. Much like the first story, the rest of this goes about how you'd expect. Robotnik shows up to attack Sonic with a giant mech, then Cyril shows up and saves the day as thanks for Sonic bringing hope into his life, so on and so forth. However, I'm much forgiving of it this time for the following reasons:

1. It's half the length of the first story, so it doesn't drag things out for no good reason.

2. It doesn't produce a million plot holes and contradictions.

3. Seeing Robotnik and Snively decked out in these ridiculous outfits right here at the end is just too goofy for me to be offended by. 

So yeah, still pretty meh, and Cyril isn't exactly a winner in terms of new additions to the book (he only makes one more substantial appearance that I can recall), but it's pretty harmless at the end of the day. That said, this issue has been REALLY lame so far, so let's see if Angelo can come in clutch for me with our last story:

"The Lynx is a Jinx!"

Alright, in a desperate attempt to bring some positive energy back into the proceedings here, there is a trend with most of Angelo's stories so far that I really like, especially in contrast to Gallagher. Despite the fact that he still mostly acts like a goof, Robotnik is pretty consistently portrayed by Angelo as a legitimate tyrant threatening the way of life of everyone on this planet. Here we see it again, with SWAT-Bots rounding up innocent forest critters to be roboticized, which is a seemingly rather common occurrence based on Sonic's comment on the situation. It's a nice little detail that brings some much-needed seriousness into this otherwise goofy period of the book's history.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I feel like the artwork here has been on a slight uptick the further this issue goes on. Maybe it's just the bright colors of this forest that really pop out at me here, or maybe Art is steadily starting to hone his craft. I don't know what it is, but I like what I'm seeing.

It's during this search-and-rescue operation that we come across our titular lynx, Larry, and- DANG IT, ANGELO! YOU PROMISED! BACK IN ISSUE 9, YOU SAID NO MORE TREE PUNS, AND THAT'S 2 STORIES YOU'VE WRITTEN SINCE THAT HAVE HAD A TREE PUN! YOU TRAITOR!

Sorry, sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me today. This issue is pushing my buttons way more than it should be.

Anyway, much like Cyril in the last story, our boy Larry is a dejected loner pretty much waiting for Robotnik to roboticize him already, but for a very different reason. You see, Larry is a self-described "super jinx" whose very presence has the mysterious effect of bringing random spikes of bad luck to whoever he comes into contact with. Case in point, the branch he and Sonic are on breaks off and somehow manages to land directly onto every single Freedom Fighter below, leading to a rather amusing result where literally everyone has something broken or bruised:

Yeah, I'm with Tails on this one. Spraining your arm or ankle is one thing, but tying and untying knots is one of the single most aggravating activities on the planet, at least for me personally. I can't tie anything to save my life, and untying things takes me an ETERNITY to do. It sucks.

                                      CRIMINALLY underrated movie btw, you should watch it sometime.

The Freedom Fighters are predictably not too thrilled at the prospect of having bad luck following them everywhere they go and decide to leave, but Sonic stays behind to try and help Larry out of his funk, which is a pretty nice display of selflessness from him even if it comes at the cost of Sally once again being nothing more than a nag. I have to say, as much as I didn't really care for the other stories in this issue, I do enjoy the consistent thread we've had of Sonic lifting people's spirits up and believing in them. That's always been one of the best attributes of his character, and it's especially effective with Larry's situation since Sonic potentially risks far more for himself by continuing to help out. It's some wholesome Good Samaritan behavior, and I like it. 

Unfortunately, the Freedom Fighters receive some immediate bad karma for abandoning Larry and end up captured, leaving Sonic and Larry to try and come up with some way to save them. Gee, I wonder how they're going to-

OK yeah, obviously you saw that coming from a mile away. Larry's jinx works on Robotnik and his goons just as well as it does on the heroes, and the rest of this is pretty much just wacky hijinks as the doctor's luck gets increasingly absurd... but then, after everyone is safe, Sonic claims that this "bad luck" for Robotnik brought everyone else "good luck", and therefore the jinx is broken, which... huh?

And then, even more confusingly, Sonic then "proves" his hypothesis by having Larry play chess, which he wins every round of, and like... literally how does that prove he's not a jinx? Forget the fact that chess is maybe the most skill-based game in existence, isn't literally the whole thing here that his jinx negatively affects the people around him? And so, therefore, Rotor losing chess over and over would count as misfortune... right? Am I missing something here?

Oh well, it's a moot point anyway. Contrary to Sonic's completely baseless conclusion here, Larry's jinx is FAR from broken, as we'll see in his future appearances. Unlike Cyril, Larry actually does make a few scattered appearances here and there, and eventually makes a HUGE comeback towards the end of Ian Flynn's preboot era as part of the absolutely spectacular "Secret Freedom" story arc, but that's a LONG way off from now. Trust me, though, the wait will be so worth it, that arc is peak fiction and NO ONE is going to tell me otherwise. Don't worry, Elias, I'll get to sing your praises on this blog someday. Have patience, my liege!

This cover goes SO HARD, dude. You can try to be cool, but you will never be as cool as Elias Acorn in spy gear. Accept this fact and weep at your inferiority in the presence of such overwhelming aura.

On that note, I guess we're done for now. Sorry if this review didn't really have as much substance this time around, but they really didn't leave me a whole lot to work with here. Gallagher's story was a frustrating pile of nothing, the Kanterovich/Penders duo are still very clearly trying to find their place in this book, and Angelo's effort at the end here was decent but nothing special. At least we got Larry and some nice Art Mawhinney artwork out of the deal, I suppose.

This next issue, though... it's a BIG one. If Issue 11 was the most consequential issue in the history of this comic for bringing Penders on board, Issue 13 could make a case for second place in that regard. For you see, on this particular occasion, Penders and his buddy Kanterovich are once again going to be taking center stage... as a certain echidna finally makes his Archie Sonic debut.

That's right. Next time: KNUCKLES.