Sonic The Hedgehog #82 Review by Rolland Therrien
Well people, here it is: The actual beginning of the Sonic Adventure adaptation. We've been kept waiting twice as long as we should've while they set this up, let's hope it's worth it...
Sonic the Hedgehog
"Night of Chaos"
Well, we meet up up with our hero as he's leaping around the rooftops of Station Square, thinking about comic book characters he used to read about as a kid. Sonic sees some police cars rushing through the stormy night and chases after them, only to find them trying (without success) to capture a large watery creature that is Chaos 0 from the Sonic game intro.
When the police's weapons prove useless, Sonic leaps in and tries to take on the monster himself. When his own sonic spins show to be useless as well, Sonic just dodges the monster's attacks, until it runs up a flagpole, apparently to attack from above. Sonic, undaunted, just runs around the flagpole (fights urge to sing "ring around the posies..."), causing Chaos to fall off the flagpole. As soon as it falls, Chaos flees to the nearest stormdrain and escapes, leaving Sonic to say his game line ("I'll play with you some other time!") and gets congratulated by the Cops...
...While above, from a building, Dr Robotnik watches Sonic and gloats, reciting his own line from the intro.
Rating:  Rings
This story was way better then the last few issues, if only because something actually happened! Shame it was so short. It would've been nice if they'd done more then just rennact the Choas 0 fight scene. Maybe a nice flashback where Sonic and Sally spoke (or better yet, one where Sally caught Sonic oogling at other girls... would've been a nice, funny scene). A good story nonetheless.
Knuckles the Echidna
"Door to the Past"
(Link to the past was already taken, I guess.)
Well, as we assumed last issue, we finally find out what Knuckles saw last issue: That little floating firefly that turns out to be Tikal, the ghostly Echidna femme from the past. She begins to communicate telepathically with him, telling him her history.
Apparently, when a boatload of Echidnas left Albion long ago (as told in "The Forgotten Tribe, part 3, Knuckles #12), they first established themselves in a southern area of Mobius, near the Mysterious Cat Country (insert ominous musical sting here). They and the native Cats got into an argument, which soon became a long war. The Echidnas themselves were divided as to what to do: The Warriors, called the "Knuckles Caste" (Hmm...) wanted to stay and fight. The Scientists just wanted to leave; so the group split up, the Science guys leaving the warriors behind.
The Warriors established themselves there, raising their families to fight the cats. Later on, they found the mystic ruins, inhabited only by the innocent little Chao. While exploring the ruins herself while her father went off to fight, Tikal made friends with the Chao, and even met with Perfect Chaos himself.
Unfortunately, the war with the Cats went badly, and the Echidnas, desperate, went to get the Seven Emeralds from the Ruins to gain their powers. Re-enacting her part from the game, Tikal tried to stop them, to no avail. Pachacamac, her father and the leader of the Warriors lead them to attack Chaos, ticking it off and making a monster out of it. Tikal then tells Knuckles (flashback over) that she and the Chao tried to fight the now corrupt Chaos, trapping it inside the Black Emerald, but not without paying a price.
From there, we cut to Dr Robotnik's ship, where his E-series robots are bringing back all sorts of frogs. Seems Robotnik's looking for one with the "Chaos Tail". Of all the robots, only E-102 Gamma brings back the right one. What happens to him and the other bots will be revealed later on. Afterwards, Robotnik brings the frog to a worktable where he hooks the poor critter up to a device which transfers the Chaos energy out of it, along with a sample of it's DNA, beaming both into Chaos, turning it into Chaos 0, from earlier in this issue.
While Robotnik unleashes Chaos to an unsuspecting world, The Cat Emperess greets her "guests", the Chaotix. The Cats, apparantly, believe them and the Island from whence they came to be threats to themselves (never mind the fact the cats themselves invaded the Island without warning).
After the usual "mouth shooting" from Vector, Julie-Su tries to negociate (from a position of strength, no doubt), when Locke enters the scene, stating the "Knuckles Clan" is willing to restart the war the Cats started long ago.
Rating: Rings
Not a bad story, this one. Very good work adapting the Sonic Adventure storyline to fit it into the world of Archie's Knuckles universe. This "Knuckles Clan" element sounds like a new, interesting facet of the Echidna culture. Obviously, from Locke's statement, there is a link between the Guardians and the Knuckles clan. And Knuckles himself, from his name alone, definetly sounds like he has a link to this clan. This is something, we should hope, the writers develop in the near future.
Final tale in this issue is the Back-up story, giving E-102 Gamma's origin. We also get some stuff from previous issues explained here.
E-102
"Double-Crossed Circuits"
We find Gamma within the Egg-carrier, looking at stasis tubes holding Metal-Sonic and Silver-Sonic (from the SA game), while the narration talks about how odd-looking those things are.
Gamma's observations are interupted by Robotnik, who orders Gamma to go through an obstacle course which contains robotic copies of Knuckles, Tails and Sonic (for target practice). Gamma makes short work of those copies (we don't even get to see them fight back).
Robotnik then assembles the E-100 robots, sends them looking for that frog from the Knuckles story, and only Gamma returns with the right one. We also get some more narration muses about how Gamma only obeys orders, without question. After he brings the right creature, Robotnik congratulates him... and destroys the other E-series units. He then orders Gamma to go fetch the flicky with Amy Rose in the brig.
Unbeknownst to Robotnik, Gamma actually hesitates before obeying orders, as if thinking. The narration then comments about how surprising this is, since he's just a robot, ain't he? Or is he?
Once he actually arrives at Amy's cell, she pleads with him to let the bird go. This triggers something within Gamma, making him use a self-diagnostic, which makes Gamma realize how evil and destructive Robotnik really is. End result: Gamma frees Amy and the flicky, letting her roam the ship, while he's ordered to go to the command deck. Gamma obeys for now.
At the end, we're left with the impression that Gamma is now a free-willed being, and that he can feel loss and regret.
Rating: Ring
This story wasn't so bad; the unique narration was rather innovative, and the art was quite decent. The obstacle course sequence was a bit gratuitous, but since we obviously won't see Gamma go after Sonic for real, this is most likely the closest we'll get to a Sonic/Gamma fight. All in all, a good back-up story.
Overall Rating: Rings |
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