Impressive issue. If only every issue were this good...

The first thing I noticed when I opened the book was the art-- mind-blowing stuff; no surprise where Axer and Jensen are involved. Even Butler topped himself-- I've always considered him good, but this time he was so good I didn't even notice the switch over the first time through!

It was nice to see that they chose to recap Sonic Adventure 2-- after all, not everybody who reads the comics plays the games (myself included...). I still say they should have waited until they'd had a chance to play the game, then done a proper adaptation, but I digress...

Seeing Sonic and Sally get engaged was quite a shock—almost as much as everybody getting deroboticized last issue. I lost hope a long time ago that Sonic and Sally’s relationship might grow any closer. I wonder how long it’ll be before they are actually married, though!

The Xorda are an impressive new force. Neat that Bollers was able to resist the impulse to make them humanoid and/or pure evil. The Xorda are way over-reacting, but they were provoked. (A long, looong time ago.)

And as for the revelation that Mobius is Earth… What revelation? I've known that since we saw the Statue of Liberty back in 116. And I've suspected it for a lot longer, thanks to the Map of Mobius in Brave New World, and the various hints Ken scatted throughout the Knuckles series. Still, it was nice to see them finally come right out and say it.

And as for Knuckles...

What've these guys got up their sleeves now?

Finally, an observation. I could be wrong, but it seems to me the creatives are running out of ideas for the ongoing struggle between Sonic and Robotnik. There is an easy solution to this—simply kill him off again. I still think it was a mistake to bring him back in the first place. As was proved when Sonic was confined to Knothole, there were still several more stories that could have been told about the Kingdom at relative peace. Furthermore, there’s always "Zone Wars" and other zone-based stories; or they could have supplemented the peaceful present-day stories with tales of the war with Robotnik during the Sonic Kids era.

I doubt the creatives will be smart enough to get rid of Eggman anytime soon, but hopefully they’ll do it sooner or later. IMNSHO, the American comic tradition of endless story lines is a recipe for monotony and pointless repetition. Far better to say what you have to say, then stop, like most Japanese Manga writer/artists do…

Not that I expect Sega or Archie to decide to stop making the comic while it’s still bringing in money; but the Sonic franchise is one particularly well suited to various interpretations—maybe it’s time for the comic to explore some new ones…