Sonic HQ - Archie Sonic Comics Reviews

A pretty decent cover, but it's just lacking the excitement of the last cover. Sonic's shocked expression is a nice touch though. The floating pieces look more like glass than metal to me. As for the frontpiece, nice art with the evolution of the aliens--but the surprise is that there aren't any words covering it up at all. Hopefully, they'll continue this trend for the frontpieces.

"Tossed In Space"
Writers: Benny Lee (Part 3: Evo-Solution)
Penciler: Ron Lim
Inker: Conor Tomas Sonic is onboard the D'Novulan space ship and is given a device to put in his ear to help him understand any alien language. Once Sonic can understand Captain Oe, Sonic finds out that he's on the Magesteron. The D'Novulans are going to the busiest trading hub in this sector of the universe. From there, Sonic's chances of getting home should increase. Unfortunately, an orb explodes and the Magesteron cannot avoid the debris. The ship can't hold up and they all have to evacuate via the ships escape pods--which are supposed to find a habitable planet. The D'Novulans weren't expecting Sonic so there's one more passenger than there are escape pods. Sonic is about to say that he can't leave when Captain Oe stabs Sonic with his tail, which paralyzes Sonic. Capt. Oe puts Sonic in the escape pod and goes down with the ship, as Sonic watches it explode.

Sonic finally can start moving again just as he's about to land on a planet where it happens to be raining (and he comments that he doesn't like rain--heh, I don't like rain either ;D). The pod warns Sonic not to leave because the atmosphere of the planet is toxic, and Sonic comments that he thought he was supposed to be taken to someplace where he could breathe while the pod sends out a distress signal. Since he's stuck in the pod, he checks the pod out and finds some rations that should last a few weeks by his estimate. Eventually, it stops raining while Sonic was sleeping. As he wakes up, the pod tells him that the atmosphere is no longer toxic so Sonic goes outside to walk around. The water is pink and makes him think of his "mom's lemonade." Showing that he did learn something back in school, Sonic comments that the "microbes" are becoming larger and then suddenly a tree springs up from out of nowhere. In "a matter of seconds" the weather goes from autumn to winter. Then the water freezes and melts and the first sign of life appears--and we also find out that Sonic has been at the planet for only 8 hours. Sonic starts thinking and figures that evolution takes place "at an accelerated rate" and decides the best thing to do is to stay in his pod.

Sonic takes a nap for an hour and finds that there are huts outside the pod. Faster than he can even speak, the huts are replaced by stone buildings, which are replaced by a huge city with skyscrapers. Then it becomes a real city of the future and stops advancing quickly. Sonic gets out the pod and notices all the the buildings have a blue hedgehog-like symbol on them. The inhabitants, who call themselves the Azurites, greet Sonic by saying "Greetings wondrous blue-spined immortal." That cracked me up. Professor Parg, who is speaking for the Azurites, created a temporal decelerator to slow the motion of the world--which confuses Sonic, who wants a "time out" as they're "going to fast" for him--heh. The Azurites explain their history of seeing Sonic's pod and their ancestors worshipped Sonic figuring he was responsible for their livelyhood. No one lived long enough to see Sonic move, so everyone thought Sonic was just an object until they got to their modern age and they determined he was a living god. However, they couldn't find a way to open his pod so they figured if they slowed down the motion of the planet that Sonic might open it and come out on his own. Even now it's obvious that they think Sonic is their creator and they all gather to have him speak to them all. Sonic tells them that he's not a god and that he didn't create them. He's a hedgehog and explains that he's trying to get back home to Mobius. To help him out, they build a spaceship--in the shape of a hedgehog--so Sonic starts on his trip again toward Mobius.

Rating: 1/2 Rings

This story wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Captain Oe's sacrifice was done very well. I do like the way Lee put in some things, such as Sonic's comment about Bernie's lemonade (though there were other things as well). Minor development that fleshes out character's is always good, particularly when not much happens otherwise as was the case for this story. Having Sonic turn out to be a "god" was an unexpected twist that was slightly amusing. Since Lim has gotten a better handle on expressions for Sonic and for the most part kept Sonic's spines a reasonable length instead of too long, just one more thing he should fix that I don't think I've mentioned before. Sonic has "mono-eyes" that have a dip toward the nose. Sometimes that dip is there and sometimes it's missing. It should never be missing. Other than that, I don't have any problems with the art here.

"Agent Sonic vs. Agent Knuckles"
Writer: Mike Gallagher
Artist: Dave Manak Agent Sonic is putting a tree in the ground while Agent Knuckles gets ready to shoot Agent Sonic. However, it turns out the tree is really a missile--that ends up blowing up Agent Knuckles. Later on at a newsstand, Agent Knuckles buys a paper--it turns out to be Agent Sonic in disguise and the paper burns Agent Knuckles' hands. However, Agent Knuckles calms down quickly and half-smirks/half-smiles as it turns out the coins Agent Knuckles gave were ticking bombs--that blow up Agent Sonic. The two then fight more conventional style--tripping & punching each other--until they end up at "Ivo's Whacks Museum." Eggman comes out and drops a wrecking ball on both of them, then zooms off into the "Shadow Zone." The two Agents put aside their differences and rip Eggman out his Egg-O-Matic--only to find it's a robot. They're confused and hear clicking sounds behind them. They turn around to be zapped by Agent Shadow--The End.

Rating: 1/2 Rings

If you happen to miss the Sonic/Knuckles fights of old (considering they haven't fought each other since Sonic #49), then this is a filler story (parodying Spy vs. Spy in MAD magazine) that might be for you. Now in the review for last issue I mentioned stuff about how I'd prefer the back-up space to be used. All of that can be applied to this story. Still, this was funny like a Looney Toons cartoon, which are the memories this story invoked for me--particularly since I had never seen Spy vs. Spy save for the little searching online I did after reading this story to learn a little about it. In the context of a parody, it's not too bad. However, I prefer continuity. If Archie must feel the need to do these parodies, then at least make Zonic a part of it so that at least there's actually some kind of tie-in with continuity. Right now, it's called wasting valuable space with unnecessary stories. Archie can always put in sight gags to acknowledge things that mean something to the staff members, so these totally unrelated stories aren't necessary.