Wow! Five great issues in a row! The creatives seem to be on a roll. J

Penciled by Patrick Spaziante, inked by Nelson Ribeiro, colored and separated by J.D. Ray.

Quite an impressive cover—aside from the cheesy story title. One mistake though-- J.D. shaded one of Sonic’s ears as if it were lying flat against his head, which the penciling does not really suggest.

By Axer.

Impressive, as always. I also notice we have a new intro blurb. Rather odd considering the trip through space is only supposed to last a few issues…

Written by Benny Lee, penciled by Steven Butler, inked by Jim Amash, colored by Jason Jensen, lettered by Jeff Powell, edited by Justin F. Gabrie, management edits by Vic Gorelick, "chief" edits by Richard Goldwater.

This issue starts exactly where the last one left off, with Sonic unconscious on the surface of an alien world.

Soon, a bug-shaped vehicle comes along and "sucks up" Sonic. He awakens to find himself face to face with a group of 8-limbed ant-like creatures, called the Blodex. Sonic runs from them, but when the vehicle is attacked by 4-limbed wasp aliens (the "Bzzzz"), Sonic takes sides and swats the attackers.

The ants, establish communication with Sonic telepathically, and take him to their city. A chat with the council reveals that the planet’s name is "Thoraxia" (‘cause everyone on it has a thorax?) and sets things up for next issue, when a "D’Novulan" trapping vessel will arrive.

But first, Sonic goes for a tour of the city, and gets a good look at the statue of the Blodex hero, Aypex, which holds six red Chaos Emeralds.

Later that night, the Bzzzz attack, led by their Queen. Sonic knows he isn’t powerful enough to defeat them on his own, so he attempts to utilize the power of the red emeralds… but anyone who’s read a Sonic fanfic with a red emerald in it knows, red emeralds tend to have strange, dangerous powers…

The first sign something has indeed gone wrong—Super Sonic doesn’t just defeat the Bzzzz, he kills them. The second sign—this Super Sonic is a separate entity from our true-blue hero…

A cool pic of the four main SegaSonic heroes by Mohd Faizal, and a pic of Bunnie by David Badgerow that they’ve printed before. Also, pics by TJ Thomas, Mary Lane, and Vincent Burger.

Written by Karl Bollers, penciled by Steven Butler, inked and lettered by J & A Ray, colored by Jason Jensen.

Super Sonic starts destroying the ant city just for the fun of it, while Sonic Prime cleans up after him.

Sonic then confronts Super Sonic and tries to figure out why he’s playing the bad guy all of a sudden. Super Sonic replies with a classic line: "There is no good. There is no evil. There is only power."

The two fight, but this is Super Sonic we’re talking about, and Sonic is about to bite the big one… when Super Sonic runs out of juice, and fades away like the chaos apparition he is.

…A very interesting story. Quite "original", at least in relation to the comic. However, a story like this has been done before, in the British Fleetway "Sonic the Comic"…

The writing has no major flaws in it (aside for some cheesy names), which is amazing considering that the two parts were each written by different authors. The art is also top-notch, classic Butler and Jensen. The only artist who could have done better is Axer.

…Before we continue on, I notice an ad for "Sonic: The Beginning". So, at long last Archie is beginning the project of collecting the Sonic series into Graphic Novel format. ‘Bout time! I’m tempted to get it, even though I already have all the issues in it, just to see how it came out. That cover’s pretty spiffy, too, though not quite worth $11 on its’ own…

Written by Mike Gallagher, penciled by Dave Manak, inked by Jim Amash, lettered by Vickie Williams, colored by Jason Jensen. (Gee, except for Jensen, this could be a story from the early issues, as far as credits go!)

In the Off Panel Zone, JG and Off-Sonic talk about their special length story. But they are interrupted by the Grim-Reaper-esque Deadline. Deadline easily rubs out Sonic, but he ain’t the hero of the Off Panel Zone. JG uses his god-like powers, along with some quick thinking, to turn Deadline back to ashes and dust.

…Now, this story, I was not expecting. I’ll bet Drazen hates it. ;) Personally, I thought it was hilarious. I wouldn’t want to see this take the place of a normal back-up story, but as we’re not in the middle of anything, what the heck.

Since we suddenly have all sorts of space, they decided to finally expand the actual letters-page part of Sonic-Grams to 2 pages…

We start things off with a letter from Cloud_strife41, who would have preferred Sonic to choose Mina. Ken says they give the readers what we want—most of the time. What the heck is that supposed to mean?!

NeoRavencroft writes in with praise for issue 123, and Ken decides to say a bunch of things not really relating to her letter, spilling the beans that Sonic will be returning in 129, but that things will not be the same as when he left… I’d already heard a rumor to that effect, but really, did he have to confirm it?

He also mentions that as of 131, we will finally see the start of "Knuckles: 20 Years Later", now known as "Mobius: 25 Years Later." Yes!!!

Next is Jarvis White of the Pseudo Sonic Team, who has several good points and requests, a couple of which contradict each other. Ken manages to address it all pretty well.

This is followed by a rather long letter critiquing issue 123. Visitors of this site might find it familiar—I know I did. J

Finally, Joseph Schmidt repeats a lot of what’s been already said in this issue. However one question is a new one: "If the former Robo-Robotnik is from another zone, then why hasn’t Zonic the zone cop taken him back to his zone?" Ken replies that the answer to that is related to a future story. Veeery interesting…

Well, somehow, they’ve done it. I’m actually looking forward to future issues again. It’s been a long time since I could say that about Sonic! Now, just so long as they can keep this level of quality up…