Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater; managing editor: Victor Gorelick; and, for the first time, I can say, "Editor: Mike Pellerito".
Pencils—amazingly, according to Mike P., the pencils are by Spaz! Quite a different style for him! Also, a different style of coloring… the Freedom Fighters look 2-D in a 3-D world! Odd… but it actually doesn’t look too bad…
I guess that must be Spaz’s sig. there in the corner, but it looks different, too! (At first I thought it said "A. Ray". Yeah, right!)
Penciled by J Axer, colored by Jason Jensen.
It’s… the return of Cyber Sonic, the Terminator-look-alike Hedgehog! Er, well, maybe not…
Written by Romy Chacon, penciled by Steven Butler, inked by Jim Amash, colored by Jason Jensen, lettered by Jeff Powell. Special thanks to Robert Leffler and Takuma Hatori at Sega Licensing.
Sonic, Tails, Antoine, Bunnie, Rotor, and even Sally—the Freedom Fighters are back in action. With Romy writing them, they feel like the old crowd (even if Bun & Ant and Sonic and Sal aren’t all lovey-dovey), and with Butler drawing, they look like the old crowd, too (despite the new outfits and whatnot). Amazing—it’s like the old cast in the new situation… I hope this is Mike P.’s doing, and I sign of things to come, not just a fluke…
So, the FF, flying the FFS2, head through old Megaopolis, toward new Megaopolis. Along the way, Sonic has time to mention he’s surprised Sal joined them in the mission, after their argument. Sal says Tommy was her friend, back in Mobotropolis—she doing it for him. (She also mentions that they ran off without telling the King—explaining how Sal managed to get out at all!)
This is a nice touch—it makes the story feel much more like part of the ongoing story, rather than a leftover from pre-125. It’s interesting, too, that although this is all mentioned in one short conversation, unnecessary to the overall plot of the chapter, it doesn’t feel out of place (and it’s lettered in the same style as the rest of the story). Either Romy put this section in herself, or Mike’s much more subtle with his continuity editing than Scott or Justin ever were.
…As the FFS2 flies into new Megaopolis, I can’t help but stop to admire the art. With Butler’s designs, and Jensen’s colors, the city is truly a sight to behold…
The Freedom Fighters disembark (and there’s some great characterization as they do so, BTW), and head into the city, where they find that "Robo-dyne" is mass-producing "Infiltrators" (or, to use Robotnik-Prime’s term, Auto-Automatons).
Falling into old, familiar patterns, Sonic and Sally venture into the heart of the complex, to rescue Tommy. …Meanwhile, the others plant bombs to blow up the facility, only to face robotic duplicates of Sonic and Sally themselves! (Too bad we didn’t get to see them put to more diabolical use! Of course, I’m assuming there aren’t any other infiltrators in place yet!)
Sonic and Sally grab Tommy in the nick of time, the others trash the Son/Sal duplicates, and Tails shows up in the FFS2 just in time to give them all a ride out, just before the bombs detonate.
And so, all’s well that ends well. (At least until they try to explain their reckless actions to the King, and Tommy’s survival to the fans!)
Wow. I give the story an 8 out of 10 (points lost for Tommy’s apparent survival, and for being part of an inferior trilogy). As for the art, a perfect 10! This is Butler and Jensen at their best—a true feast for the eyes!
Written by Ken Penders, penciled by Steven Butler, inked by Jim Amash, lettered by Jon E. Workman, colored by Jason Jensen.
In two parallel stories, Sonic and Sally, and Knuckles and Julie-Su fret about the upcoming get-together, and how Sonic and Knuckles will manage to get along…
In addition to this, Sonic’s having a mid-life crisis: he’s been thinking about how he really isn’t cut out to be King (even after 17 years!). Meanwhile, Knuckles is worrying about the Rotor and Cobar’s predictions of doom.
We get our first look at Manik since Sally’s vision of him in SSS11, and learn he isn’t a teenager, quite yet. (He’s even missing a tooth, just like Sonic in "Sonic Kids".) He also wears sneakers much like those Sonic does in the more recent post-Adventure games, except, they’re gold.
As for Sonia, it’s as if she isn’t even there—she’s only in two panels, and we can't get a good look at her in either. (In fact, if you don't carefully study the panels, you might miss that she's there at all!) ...I can see, however, that she wears purple boots and a purple jacket, and presumably nothing else.
Story: 6 out of 10. (The alternating story gimmick is jarring, there’s no good explanation for Sonia’s camera-shyness, and J-Su’s mention of Manik not yet being a teenager seems to come out of the blue…)
Art: 8 out of 10 (Butler does another great job, but Abby looks more cartoony than she should, and I would have thought he’d have been able to sneak Sonia into the story sooner. Nothing special from Jensen.)
Written by Romy Chacon, penciled by Al Bigly, inked and lettered by Michael Higgins, colored by Jason Jensen.
Ant finds an old letter from Bunnie, which reminds him of an earlier crush, a cat named Tatiana, who was more attracted to Sonic in the good old days.
Story: After many years, real time, we learn what Ant was referring to in the Image Crossover special when he uttered the title phrase of this story. Whatever.
Art: Blech! 3 out of 10, or worse! What we have here is a sever mismatch of talent. I can tell Mr. Bigley is a talented artist (even if all his characters have the proportions of anorexic humans…). But Higgins’ inking is far too sloppy for Al’s pencils—it makes it look like the entire story was scribbled rather than drawn. And as for Jensen’s coloring… I guess he put all his effort into the first story, and none into this one. In any case, as sometimes happens, his shading is so over-the-top that everything looks shiny—yet another visual distraction to this already hard-to-look-at story…
And we have a new look! (Been a while!)
Mike intro’s some of the changes in the comic, and shamelessly plugs the new "manga-style" Sabrina comic.
Written by Mike Gallagher, penciled by Dave Manak, colored by the Art Department.
We get our first look at Mike, as get all hysterical when Archimedes (remember him?) brings some relatives over to visit Archie Studios…
Well, except for Ant’s story, this certainly reads a lot better than most recent issues. In a way, it felt like I was finally reading more of the old pre-Adventure Sonic comic again. Very nice. Now, if Mike can keep this up…