Sonic Investigation
Case #5: Altered Sonic Firsts
Question: What are the differences between the 48-page special “Sonic
Firsts” and the original comics?
The good news is that although there were changes made in Sonic Firsts,
the story was left alone. In other words, the plot did not change and
pages were not omitted. The changes that were made primarily involve
colors.
For backgrounds and items, colors changed slightly. The background
in Knothole in “Don’t Cry for Me, Mobius!” has a new color. Some dialogue
balloons have also changed from a dark background color to a lighter shade
of the original color. Even the rings changed from an orange/gold color
in “The Lizard of Odd!” to a yellow color.
As for most of the characters, their colors changed only slightly.
For instance, the first story “Don’t Cry for Me, Mobius!” shows Sonic being
a slightly darker (or in some cases slightly lighter) shade of blue, Tails
is a lighter shade of brown, and Caterkiller is a darker shade of purple.
Other changes are only noticeable if you have the original comic. Robotnik’s
eyes are a good example:
As seen in the pictures above, Robotnik’s original eyes (to the left) were
black and are now changed to red (on the right). Another change concerning
the eyes is Sonic’s eyelids. When Sonic closed his eyes, the color of
his eyelids was usually white. Now when Sonic closes his eyes, the color
is blue. This can be strange when Sonic winks at the end of the story:
The most dramatic color change involves Princess Sally. In “Don’t
Cry for Me, Mobius!” Sally was originally orange with blonde hair.
For the reprint issue, Sally’s colors were changed to her current brown fur
with reddish hair:
By the time of second story, “Rabbot Deployment!” Sally had already been
her new color for a few issues (her original orange fur was seen only in Sonic
the Hedgehog #0). Instead of keeping Sally with her pink fur and black
hair (which was usually referred to as burnette hair), she was again upgraded
to her new brown fur and reddish hair:
Bunnie has a similar change when considering her eyes and nose. Instead
of her eyes and nose being blue, Bunnie now has green eyes with a pink nose:
Other changes are not as obvious since they involve text. This point
mainly refers to Boomer/Rotor. When the comics were first published,
the name for the walrus was Boomer. However, after a few issues the
name was changed to Rotor. Instead of calling the walrus “Boomer” in
first issues, the name “Rotor” has been inserted in its place.
There are other minor changes involving text, such as the removal of the
credits in each republished story. The numbering of the pages has also
slightly changed; the original numbering restarted after the first part ended,
while the reprinted version of the story continues the numbering. Another
slight change involves the story “The Lizard of Odd!” where an editor’s note
was given by “Victorsauras” (the editor at the time was Victor Gorelick).
For the reprinted edition, “Victorsauras” is simply replaced by “Editor.”
As a whole, the changes made in “Sonic Firsts” are only minor in comparison
to the original comics. These changes were most likely made for fans
that started reading after issue #16, when Sally was first colored brown.
More changes had to be made in the first story, “Don’t Cry for Me, Mobius!”
since it was published first. The last story, “This Island Hedgehog,”
does not have any significant changes since it was published later than the
prior stories (and Sally, who at the time still had pink fur, was not in the
story).
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