Well, here we go again…
By Spaz, Ribeiro, and JD Ray.
Sonic in a space capsule, plummeting towards the surface of a planet.
By Axer and Conor Tomas.
The Evolution of Azure.
Written by Benny Lee, penciled by Ron Lim, inked by Conor Tomas, colored by Jason Jensen, lettered by Jeff Powell, edited by J.F. Gabrie, edited again by "managing" Victor Gorelick, and yet again by "In Chief" Richard Goldwater…
A space ship that looks like a blocky aircraft carrier passes silently through the void… Nice design on that, IMO. I mean, with that "sawed-off" "front", it is far from aerodynamic, aerodynamics being would be pointless in a starship (Star Trek not withstanding). Also, those spires on the bottom suggest there might not even be a true "top" and "bottom" at all—another convention unnecessary on a space-vehicle.
Onboard, the D’Novulans (mentioned last issue) give Sonic a Universal Translator, which unlike the ones in Star Trek, does not work perfectly. (It’s a nice touch how the D’Novulans often "say" words that have a similar meanings to what they are really trying to say, but no natural-born English speaker would use in that context.)
Not to long after this, debris from an exploding planet (what?!) strike the ship, dooming it and anyone who chooses to remain on board. Having just enough escape pods for the ships crew, the Captain, choosing to go down with the ship, forces Sonic to board the last escape pod. (Those tails aren’t just for show! Neat.)
Sonic’s pod lands on an alien world, one that does not happen to conveniently have the proper atmosphere for our hero. [Note to Drazen—Sonic realizes there’s enough rations for a few weeks when he looks in the storage bin. How he knew it was a storage bin, and that those packets held food, is another matter. Maybe the translator wires itself into the subject’s brain, translating writing as well?]
Hours later, Sonic awakens to find that the atmosphere has somehow changed drastically during his slumber. And then, he is shocked to witness life evolving around him at an absurdly accelerated rate. (Must be like a million years a second, or something, at this point…)
Freaked out, Sonic returns to his capsule.
When he next awakens, the life forms on the planet have achieved sapience (sentience + humanoid form + a human way of thinking). The time passing outside the capsule has also slowed considerably. (I’d say, if the aliens followed the Human pattern, there’d be four to seven thousand years between the page’s second and third panels, and approximately a thousand years, give or take, between the subsequent panels.)
And then, time slows to a speed Sonic can deal with. He comes out of his pod, and meets the planet’s inhabitants, the Azurites—beings so technologically advanced they were able to build a "temporal decelerator" to slow the motion of time on the planet to Sonic’s level... And so dim-witted, it apparently didn’t occur to them that it might be easier to speed up Sonic… (Come to think of it, maybe time didn’t slow down before it stopped. If their finest minds are this dull, they may have needed a few million years to achieve that level of technology!) …They also still think of Sonic as a god. (Who didn’t see that one coming?)
Sonic attempts to dissuade them of that notion, but seeing as how they don’t seem all that distraught at the revelation, I don’t think it worked. (Sonic: "I’m a hedgehog." Azurite [with awe in his voice]: "Hedge… hog…")
When Sonic mentions he’s trying to get to his own planet, the Azurites dutifully construct a space ship for the Hedgehog. Appropriately, it’s blue and has spines. (I doubt it, but I hope he gets to keep it!)
And so, Sonic heads off towards Mobius (if he can figure out what direction to head in), while the Azurites presumably return to happily worshiping the traveling Hedgehog of gods, SONIC.
…Oh, boy…
Isn’t it ironic that the Thoraxia/Super Sonic story was divided into two chapters, while the D’Novulan story and the Azurite story were combined into one chapter?
Both parts of this chapter had a lot of merit, but compressed into this space, they felt rushed and rather pointless…
I particularly had a problem with the second half. I mean, it really wouldn’t have taken all that much space to put in a little blurb of techno-babel explaining why time on "Azuria" ran so fast.
Written by Michael Gallagher, drawn by Dave Manak, colored by Jason Jensen.
An homage to MAD magazine’s Spy vs. Spy strips. I always loved those strips…
I always found the Spys themselves to look rather creepy, though—which makes seeing Sonic and Knuckles drawn in a similar style slightly disturbing…
Art by Scott Wiley, Geoffrey T. Bradbeer, Jessica Fryer, and Christa Sandoval.
JG shamelessly advertises Sonic X (ah, reminds me of the good old days, when Scott always advertised the latest games and specials).
Then Ken takes over for the letters page, as usual, pretty much following the tradition of not really giving people satisfactory answers.
Kevin S. asks about writing for Sonic, Ken replies, essentially, "Don’t get your hopes up…"
Jonathan Chang suggests making a poster of the cover of 125… I could think of many better Sonic Art to put on one, but it doesn’t really matter—fans have been asking for posters and t-shirts based on the comic for years, and if anyone’s gotten any results (other than the S&K silhouette poster in "In Your Face"), I haven’t heard of it.
And zfreak2004 is a little baffled by the Zone/Alternate Universe phenomena. Ken says it’s too soon to explain… which certainly caught me by surprise! I’ve always assumed it never needed an explanation.
Specifically: zfreak points out that in Sonic Live and SSS7, Sonic travels to Earth, which seems inconsistent with Mobius being Earth in the future. The answer seems quite obvious to me—obvious enough to overlook, I suppose. The Cosmic Interstate allows one to travel to different "Zones"—alternate universes. However, not all Zones exist at the same point in their history at the same time, cosmically speaking. Thus, the Earths seen in SL and SSS7 were in the 90’s, Mobius Prime is in the year "3236" (approximately A.D.6240), and the Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy Zone is in the year "4235" (c. A.D.7240).
Simple enough right? Which, after Ken’s answer, makes me worry they’re about to needlessly complicate things again…
A somewhat disappointing issue… Still, I look forward to future issues. Ever since they "brought back" Robotnik in 75, I’ve known the comic would never become what I wanted it to be, at least not with this creative team. Now, with such a conclusive end to 125, I can think of that as the long-overdue end to the SatAM inspired Archie Sonic saga. (True, Eggman Robotnik was never defeated, but then the series started with Robotnik Prime already in power. We’ve just come full circle.)
This point of view allows me to follow the series as a basically separate entity from the comic I "used to read"… In other words, I’ve come to accept that the comic is no longer really about "my" Sonic—which is okay. I was getting ready for him to take a break back in the early 70’s, anyway.
Now I’ve just gotta get back to my Sonic fanfics, so I can tell about MY Sonic, the way I always wanted him to be…