Sonic The Hedgehog 126, A review by ZoneZ The Hedgehog
Cover: Sonic vs. Supr Sonic in space. Super cool, although it would've been better if Sonic's leg didn't look like a stick. By Spaz, Riberio, and the Rays.
Tosed In Space: Part 1, Red Choas
Story By Benny Lee, Pencils by Steven Butler, Inks by Jim Amash, Colors by Jason Jensen, Letters by by Jeff Powell, With J.F. Gabrie as editor, Victor Gorelick as managing editor, and Richard Goldwater as editor in cheif.
We find sonic where he last was....on a planet in a far away galaxy. Sonic wakes up to find himself surronded by Aleins called Bloodex. Sonic finds out that the Bloodex are friendly and know his luangue. The he hears about the evil Bzzzzzz and gets a tour around the city. Then he sees a statue holding six red emrelds. So he thinks if he could become Super Sonic with 7 green ones, it would do the same. what he dosen't know is that there's a minor diffrence....
Score: 8/10
Off Panel: Better Read Than Dead
Written by Mike Gallagher, Penciled by Dave Manak, Inked by Jim Amash Letterd by Vickie Williams, Colors by Jason Jensen, Edited by Justin Gabrie
Yippe! Off-Panel got it's 3 panel cartton format up to five pages! But.....things are wrong. The word ballons aren't completed, the inks, or the panel borders! But it gets worse when HE comes.........
Score: 7/10 |
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Review for #126, spoilers bound, but hey, it's what I do...
Another review, another time to express my views on the latest Sonic comic that has graze this month, well, like always, here we go...
COVER:
Finally! The magazine cover's reign has finally ended. Well, it sorta ended with #125, but you know what I mean. Out of the seven magazine covers that grazed the issues, only two remained good enough in my eye. Let Archie never do something like this again. Now, we have the real deal. No more white bland backgrounds, no more two characters posing weirdly, no more corny catchphrases that makes me laugh out loud, we got the real covers back and what a cover this is!
Sonic and Super Sonic (who looks like he's sporting them soap shoes that Sonic wore in SA2 and mind you, those shoes were incredibly cool), ready to duke it out. Complete that with the AWESOME BG and Super Sonic's muliple flashes, this cover is undeniably beautiful. That white flashes behind Sonic's head looking like some Big Bang is also incredible. I also saw previews for other Sonic cover based on his "Tossed in Space" Arc and I fell in love with it. Great job, Spaz, ya outdone yourself once again!
10/10
FRONTIPIECE:
We see Sonic in the planet he landed with images of his buddies in the background. Some stars and planet aside, this is an okay BG, but for some odd reason, I don't like it as I did other of Axer's frontipiece. Nothing made me go "Wow, he did it again" here. It feels so...plain to me. Granted, his art will forever rock my sock for all eternity, but this frontipiece just didn't do it for me.
7/10
STORY: Red Chaos: Part 1
So thus begins Sonic's "Tossed in Space" Arc. Let us begin.
We get a one page narration of what happened in last issue while Sonic lies there, looking...well dead. Of course, we find out he's sleeping. Wow, what a perfect place to sleep, on the middle of a planet he doesn't even know where he could likely be stepped on by that giant insect mobile. Fortunately for him, he was sucked up ala' UFOs do.
Sonic wakes up (thinking he's in heaven), and sees ant-like creature. Quickly realizing he ain't dead yet, Sonic tries to speed on outta here, thinking he should have died. His running was cancelled when flying bee creatures attack the mobile insect robot thingy. Sonic sees it's best to run then fight, but he can't resist kicking some butt, so he buzzcuts those bees like a lumberjack on a log.
The ant creatures talks to him in which Sonic praises their English skills which they learned in like 2 milliseconds by just accessing Sonic's thought. Geez, kinda wish I had that power, that way I can speak my own native language better. Anywho, Sonic gets the royal treatment and is lifted up to the huge metropolis where the bugs live. There, he meets with, what I think, are the creature's equvilent of the High Council, they wear the fancy robes and everything.
They explain Sonic has landed on Planet Thoraxia, which I can understand why they used that name (a Thorax is part of a bug), and they(the ant creatures) are called Blodex, which I have no clue where they thought that up. Their enemies, those flying bees called The Bzzzzz. Yea, I know, I know, don't start...
Anywho, since these creature somehow has limited technology when it comes to flying mobiles, Sonic can hitch a ride on a D'novulan (Nice word right there) trading vessel that's coming tomorrow. So, basically Sonic does the one thing he can do for a day...get a tour guide of the city!
He stops by a Blodex statue holding six ruby colored emeralds which Sonic obviously compares to the ones back home. The Blodex explain it gave their hero, Aypex (the statue is obviously him) was given the emeralds from the sky and he defeated the Queen thousands of years ago. And the Blodex decide that Sonic will be the new defender which Sonic doesn't exactly like the sound of it. Geez, and I thought the Blodex was gonna help Sonic get home? Not only can they pick up other people's language quickly, they sure change their mind quickly.
Sonic is about to get some sleep until The Bzzzz comes once again, the Queen in tow. Bummer. Sonic obviously goes out to save the others and decided the six Chaos emeralds shall do the trick. Note to Archie, Sonic used SEVEN to be Super Sonic, NOT six. Come on guys, I'm one of the few people who still has faith in you, you know better then this. I can ONLY pray this is some writer's mistake. Sigh...anywho, Sonic goes on and prays six red ones will do it as well, so...did it?
The next page, Super Sonic goes on and delievers damage and gets rid of all the Bzzzzz...unfortuntely, Sonic didn't do it, he watched the whole thing. So, Sonic, meet your super twin.
Does anyone else thing his face looks so darn adorable in that last panel of page 11? And not to mention he isn't wearig his soap shoes. Kinda wish he did.
PART 2: Hog and Superhog
We have new inker here, you can really tell the coloring and inking changed here. Anywho, Super Sonic starts wreaking havoc with Sonic trying to play hero. The Blodex doesn't seem to have the time to ask, "Is that your evil twin, Sonic?" Knowing Super Sonic better then anyone, Sonic decides to go one-on-one by talking it over.
Super Sonic seems to believe in only in power and not good or evil (is that even possible, to be neutrul? Well, I guess Anti-Hero kinda counts). He certainly ain't no anti-hero as he plans to destroy the world's moon. Hmm, if he can destroy planets, we got a strong contender for Super Sayien Goku.
Sonic stops him in time, barely missing the moons and we get a one and a half action page with Sonic almost biting the dust. Luckily, lke always, Super Sonic doesn't always last, so he disappears. Looks like his 50 rings are up.
REVIEW:
Well, okay..okay. I was getting all heated up by the time the first part was over. I was expecting a full blown war between Sonic and Super Sonic. I mean, the next few pages could have easily handled that, but it wasn't what I expected. Sure, I was no fan of the bat/bunnie fight in #116. If they had just talked a bit, I would have tolerated it. And while this issue did that, there was too much talking. They didn't need to bother with the moon destroying, they could have just fought while probably insulting each other. The fight was extremely short, even for only 16 pages. I liked it a lot and I thought it had potential, then it drizzled down to this. Sigh...Tossed in Space is gonna be one bumpy arc.
6/10
ART: Like always, Steven Butler does the goods. Sonic's pose in the first panel where he's grinning in page 5 is so SegaSonic, I love it. Another thing to note is usually when Butler makes Sonic look innocent, or worried or anything that does't involve him grinning or mad, he looks downright adorable. REALLY adorable. His Super Sonic on page 11 of the last panel is downright cute, his grin, especially. Though he looks ugly in the second to last panel in page 14 when he laughs and Sonic looks weird with that buck tooth Butler gave him in the second panel of the last page, but like always, Butler delievers the good.
9/10
STORY: Better read then Dead
Here it is, the first off-panel comic. I've been expecting this for a long time. I'm a fan of the off-panel strip. I love humor and silly, insane, demented-ness (you should see all the demented stuff I make Remmy do in my art). So, I had high hopes these people wouldn't fail me. Well, let's see how they did.
Justin Gabrie (who I'll call J.G for short) and Sonic start talking of their own comic appearance, but things get hectic when the words on their speech bubbles start to scramble like a TV reception. Sonic starts to get uninked and J.G almost falls down from an unfinished strip.
Turns out it was all from Deadline, a death wannabe with an hourglass in one hand, Glaive in another. Ooooooooookay? At this time, Sonic is nothing but blue pencil scribble.
Deadline does a little time travel to when this idea was cooked up and then explained more of his powers by literally erasing Sonic. Now it's Deadline VS. J.G. *Rings bell*
And this corner, weighting in at 140 lbs, the king of delays and time, Master of Ugliness, and Prince of all freaky ideas, Deadline! In the other corner, weighting in at, looks like 160 and up, the master of Archie editors, King of the Sonic world, and Sultan of Bald hair, Justin Gabrie!
Anywho, Deadline explains why he's doing this, namely, none of his ideas were even considered by the Archie staff (and another reason was he had no address return back, so Archie couldn't write back to them). Though I admit, some of his ideas were pretty farfetched, Eggman in a tutu is the most greatest idea ever to graze this comic book!
Anywho, J.G fights back by getting every single people who ever worked for Sonic (and it's A LOT, I didn't think there would be so many, some I don't even know), causing him to burn away. Sonic returns and it's off to the letter pages...
REVIEWS:
Okay. First things first, this story remains me greatly of my fancomic I made. I made a Sonic Halloween special which held three stories ala' Simpsons Treehouse of Horror specials. Needless to say, my last story was Sonic and the gangs portraying as Scooby Doo characters. In there, they complain and whine a lot and I, the narrator, tries to keep them in control throughout the story.
This story is a lot like it. Unfortauntely for this off-panel, it certainly didn't make me laugh except for a few scenes and I seriously though Deadline should have been something better...but then again, it's DEADline, so I can see why they used a Death wanna-be. The concept was fun, but not funny, and I was expecting that. If they ever do something like this again and I hope they do, they make it a bit more funnier, other then that, this wasn't a bad story. Of course not, this is suppose to be a humor story, no matter how bad it is, it's just not funny.
6/10
ART: Like I said, I always loved Dave's artwork simply because his drawing of Sonic is so unique, I love it! His drawings of humans are some I really enjoy. It's very bouncy and cute and I'm glad he finally had the chance to shine in these six pages. I wanna see more from you, buddy. Here's to the next off-panel.
10/10
Other things I found in the letter's page: Knuckles' stories return in #130 as he deals with the Acorn's politics, the 25 years later comes in #131 (FINALLY),we'll find out in future stories of why Zonic let Robo-Robotnik to Sonic's dimension, and the Robians deal come up in #129. Better this issue then two years later down the road, and the reason Sally was chosen then Mina was because Archie got more responses from Sally fans then Mina fans. There, answers to questions solved.
-Neo |
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