Editorial team: Editor in chief: Richard Goldwater; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor: Scott Fulop.
Lettered by Mindy Eisman, colored by Barry Grossman, special thanks to Bob Harris, Cynthia Wilkes, and Jennifer Hunn of SEGA of America.
Penciled by Dave Manak, inked by Jon D’Agostino.
Sally and Tails are on a roller-coaster ride, while in the box-less corner box, Robotnik looks on.
Art by Patrick Spaziante.
A table of contents—what an intriguing idea! Wonder why they didn’t use it more often.
Written by Mike Kanterovich and Ken Penders, penciled by Art Mawhinney, inked by Rich Koslowski.
A day or so after Julayla’s death, Rosie reveals that Julayla left all her belongings to Sally. Among them she finds a blue vest (yep, the same one she wars to this day!), and a map for her to follow.
That evening, the mysterious orb discovered in issue 17 fades away to reveal what’s inside—Nicole.
The next day, the Freedom Fighters head for the "Forbidden Zone", per the map’s instructions. Working together, they make it past the guards (both living and robotic), and retrieve Julayla’s final message to Sally—a quote from Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true".
We then skip ahead a good 25 years, to see Queen Sally reminiscing about this story’s events. We learn that Bunnie is de-roboticized, Tails, Antoine, and Rotor all have glasses, and, of course, Sonic and Sally are married. Furthermore, they have kids—a little girl squirrel, and a boy hedgehog, both with their father’s speed. And, watching over them all: the aged King Acorn.
Rotor finishes work on his greatest creation, Nicole (the original having been destroyed in the final battle with Robotnik), and sends "her" back in time, to the present (thus causing the new Nicole to become the original…).
Sally gazes at the stars, content with her life, and the editor breaks in to let us know this is only a possible future…
...I love the art in this story—it was the first story to make me really appreciate Art Mawhinney’s skills.
The story itself is also quite good. Although the basic idea isn’t all that special, its execution is fabulous. Rarely do we get to see the entire team in action like this, working as a unit. The characterizations were spot-on, delving deeper than usual (before or after). And of course, the scene of the future would become a fan favorite, leading eventually (almost ten years later) to the creation of the story, "Mobius: 25 Years Later".
Meanwhile, the editorial intrusion at the end foreshadowed the current conflict over whether M25YL is Mobius Prime’s true future, or not…
Pencilled and colored by Patrick Spaziante, inked by Harvey Mercadoocasio.
Our first good look at the phenomenal art of "Spaz"—the first truly great Sonic artist.
Written and penciled by Patrick Spaziante, inked by Harvey Mercadoocasio.
Sonic and Tails chase a Swatbot into the "Mirror Zone", where even the speech balloons are mirror images…
A nice penciled picture of Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Rotor, and Bunnie on Sonic’s biplane, by Corey and Peter Smith; an exceptionally tall Sally in a dress by Brandi Epps; Sonic and Tails, by Helen Bryant; Knuckles, by Justin Norcross; evil Sonic ("Wild Thing"), by Casper Jarvis; Sonic relaxing, by Elizabeth Ramirez; and Sonic and Tails "Up, Over, and Gone", by Ken Wiersbowski.
"Sonic" takes over from Scott in answering the letters. Letters by Stephan Quinones, Jason Burkett, the Ritchey family, Amy Swope, and… Robotnik’s #1 female fan, and would-be girlfriend, Tammy Fehr…
Written and penciled by Scott Shaw!, inked by Rich Koslowski.
Tails visits the Sonic-Con, gets a crush on an Opossum named Posey, tells a tall tale about fighting a giant robot frog, and then saves the day when Robotnik tries to crash the convention.
The first Sonic Special… and possibly the best. The addition of the scene at the end was also a brilliant move, one I greatly appreciated at the time.
Despite the slight change in status quo "Sally’s Crusade" represented, for the most part the series still liked to have as little change as possible. It also didn’t seem likely to last for many more years. That being the case, this seemed like it might be the only chance to tell the ending of the story, and for a long time, I was very glad they did.