Sonic Super Special #11

a Review by
Rolland Therrien

Female Furries of Mobius

Well, this special was a decent one, especially after the last "Special". It's basically a spot-light on the various female heroes of Mobius, with more introspective stories to show us some character developement. Let's go by them one by one:

Princess Sally: "Ascension"

This story, apparently set before the royal family left Mobotropolis again in Sonic #75, has Princess Sally, take that fateful dip into the Source of All, under the watchful eye of her brother, Elias. He wants her to bond with the Source so she can assume the title of Queen someday. Before she does, she has an internal dialogue telling us all her life she never had many choices: She was by birth the heir to the throne, but had that title taken away when her brother came back. Now, she has to choose whether or not she wants to bond with the Source and ascend to the throne.

Within the Source, Sally relives some past moments of her life, speaks with visions resembling her father and brother (the present), and speaks to a future version of herself, from whom she learns that those who bond with the Source become aware of things to come. To demonstrate this, Sally gets a vision of things to come, from 20 years later (as shown in many different issues: Sally and Sonic, married with twins), where she sees her family under attack once more. Before she can learn anymore, she must bond with the Source.

The catch? It's all or nothing. One either bonds with the Source or one doesn't become queen at all. Sally has a tough choice now. Sally chooses not to know the future and exits the Source, telling her brother this is not the way for her. She has to find her own way.

Well, the art was nice, albeit a bit flat. The story was short and nice, but not very interesting. But the plot had a few holes in it: If Sally refused to bond with the Source, why did she see a future version of herself as Queen? And what of the vision of the future, so far in accordance to the "canon" version of Mobius' future? If Sally doesn't become queen, can it still happen? Or does Sally's ascendance to the Throne have nothing to do with the Source of All? At the end of this story, we're left with a few more answers than questions.

Rating: 2 Rings.

Hershey: "Solo"

This story is set in the present time-frame. Hershey sneaks into Dr. Robotnik's inner sanctum to spy on him and find out what happened to Valdez the chameleon (He was roboticized, as revealed in Both Knuckles #30 and #31) There's really not much more to this story. We get another cameo of General D'Coolette (I gotta write a letter to those writers for mucking up a prefectly good French name like that), and we get a few nice explosions. But there's not much introspection nor a lot of plot development.

Rating: 1 Ring.

Lupe and the Wolfpack: "Family"

This one features the Wolfpack, having finally returned to their own hometown, only to find it in ruins. They are suddenly ambushed and find themselves prisoners of Uncle Chuck, who's been reprogrammed into a loyal lieutenant of Robotnik's. Lupe also finds, to her anger, that her husband, Lobo, and her children, Marcos and Maria, have been roboticized as well. Unable to struggle, the pack is lead to a roboticizer, with Lupe getting first turn. But after being roboticized, Lupe still finds the strength of will to use her new robotic body to knock out Chuck and his Shadowbots and thus free the rest of the pack. But she's not going with them. She's staying with her family, as she feels her mind fading...

Afterwards, the Wolfpack leaves a marker in Lupe's memory behind them as they walk off into the sun-set (and character limbo, along with Rotor and the 40 fathoms FF), which seems suspiciously like a grave...

Well, this story was short, depressing and poorly executed. Lupe was a good reocurring character, who deserved better then to be "killed off" in a "Special" in such a lousy manner. On a related note, Archie's getting into the habit of "killing off" unused characters more and more frequently. Since our old favorite, Rotor, is no longer in the spotlight as of late, this does not bode well for our friend.

Rating: 1 Ring

Bunnie Rabbot: "Upgrade"

Bunnie Rabbot finds herself victim of a serious condition: her robotic limbs, in their present state, are slowly killing her. There are three solutions: have the limbs removed (amputating her three ways), upgrading the limbs' hardware, which would remove any chance for her to get de-roboticized in the future, or chance a deroboticization now, with the odds against her survival.

After a short one-page scene where Antoine gives Bunnie moral confort, saying he'll love her whatever she chooses (aaaww... Who says the French aren't romantic?), Bunnie finally goes for option #2: Getting the upgrade. After Nate (the new expert in all things technological) finishes the upgrade work, we see Bunnie has gotten a new look out of it: Sleeker, more natural, and more feminine than her old limbs (and it includes a flight mode). As Bunnie rockets into the skies, we see Bunnie has accustomed herself to the idea she'll be a cyborg for the rest of her life.

Well, the more I see of Fry's art, the more I like it. His Bunnie looks great, and his Antoine doesn't look ridiculous: a good combo in my book (but then I like Antoine). Ken Penders did a great job of the characterization here, and made us feel for Bunnie.

Rating: 3 Rings.

Julie-Su: "Shadows"

Julie-Su, Knuckles' girl-friend, decides one fine day that she can't face the future with first facing her past once more. So she goes and pays a visit to her old home: The Dark Legion base from way back in Knuckles #3. Once she arrives at the now abandoned and run-down base, she begins to remember her past there, living as a Dark Legionnaire, and recalls how Kragok and the female called Komissar didn't like her much. She also finds someone hiding there: A former Dark Legionnaire called Simon, who knows Julie-Su. He and his wife Floren-Ca cared for Julie in her youth as if they were her parents. She doesn't remember him, so he goes on to tell her all about her origins:

Moritori's own son, Luger, got married to a femme called Merin-Da and had two kids: a son called Kragok, and a daughter called Lien-Da (apparently, females inherit the second part of their names from their mothers). Years afterwards, when the DL got back to the Floating Island, Merin-Da got sick and died. Years later, Luger fell in love again and married young female Mari-Su, much to the bitterness of the now teenage Kragok and Lien-Da. Luger and Mari-Su had a child of their own, called, you guessed it, Julie-Su. Needless to say, her half-brother and half-sister didn't like her very much. As if that wasn't bad enough, Julie-Su's mother died in an accident. Since Luger wasn't much of a parent (Kragok and Lien-Da being clear proof), Julie was entrusted to the care of Floren-Ca.

Afterwards, Luger himself disappeared without a trace, under mysterious circumstances, leaving Kragok behind to take command. Then, he and Lien-Da decided to get rid of Julie-Su, by activating a memory erasure implant which all Dark Legionnaires receive at birth (seems silly, but then I'm no DL). Julie-Su, now pretty much a blank slate, was raised by Simon and Floren-Ca as if she was their own daughter, until they took her away from them, wiped her memories again and trained her as a DL grunt.

After Julie-Su was taken from them, Simon and Floren-Ca stayed behind on the Floating Island when the DL went back into their prison Zone. When they later learned of Julie-Su's return, Simon went to the base to collect evidence to show her her past. After this reunion, Julie-Su leaves with Simon to get better acquianted with both him and the woman who served as her mother during her childhood. She wanted to face her past, and she's getting all that and more.

This was a great story. Best in this special, in my opinion. Spaz shows us again why he's the king of Sonic art, and Ken's story was great. This story finally clears up Julie-Su's past, and opens up some great venues for dramatic stories (Julie-Su, now being a distant descendant of Dimitri's [distant enough not to be a close cousin of Knuckles'], has a direct claim to the leadership of the Dark Legion). Shame this is happenning now that the Knux comic is being cancelled...

Rating: 4 Rings.

Overall Rating: 3 Rings.