INFO BURST

Format: Comic strip
Initial Release Date: 13/11/93
Feature character: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Extra Life
Other Characters: Miles “Tails” Prower, Animal Friends (Sally Acorn, Porker Lewis, Johnny Lightfoot, Tux the Penguin, Joe Sushi, Chirps the Chicken, various unnamed animals)
Locations: Mobius, West Side Island, Emerald Hill Zone
Items: Item Box
Continuity: Sonic the Comic
Synopsis: Tails comes across an Item Box with Sonic apparently trapped inside it. Pressing the button on the front of the monitor releases a twisted duplicate of Sonic, who duped Tails into freeing him. The double smashes up the new hideout Sonic’s friends are constructing and goes on a rampage. Sonic confronts the double but his friends don’t initially realise there are now two Sonics. Fortunately, this confusion is soon brought to an end as the doppelganger returns to bring the fight to Sonic. They explain they were created by Doctor Kintobor as an Extra Life for Sonic but being trapped in the Item Box for years gave him time to plot against the real Sonic. As Extra Life is about to defeat Sonic, Tails arrives with the Item Box and, pressing the button once more, traps the pretender inside it again. Sonic winds up a super-sonic kick and boots the Item Box into space. Sally apologises for not realising the fake Sonic wasn’t the real deal and Sonic quips that, if nothing else, he thought his identical double was a good looking guy.

CREDITS

Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Mike Hadley
Letterer: Ellie de Ville

Review

As with the previous Sonic the Comic issue’s lead story, this one goes to an old cliché of comic books: the evil double. Sonic’s got quite the line in evil doubles, not least among which Metal Sonic, and not even for the first time in this comic, but this duplicate, as with his video game doppelgangers, manages to put a distinctly Sonic twist on proceedings by involving something from the Sonic video games. Specifically, the use of the Extra Life monitor. This isn’t the first time Mark Millar has pulled from the video games for his strips, but this is certainly the most interesting. How would an Extra Life work in the context of the fiction? And, if it had sentience, would it be resentful of being trapped in an Item Box? According to this story, yes, and that’s a plenty good excuse for it to run amok and cause havoc, attempting to ruin Sonic’s good name in the process.

The story does feel oddly disconnected to the ongoing narrative involving Robotnik. For that matter, aside from being mentioned by name once, Robotnik isn’t even connected to the story as he has nothing to do with the villain of the piece. In that regard, this one almost feels like a slice of life story of Sonic and his friends.

Mike Hadley’s art gives the Emerald Hill Zone a nice vibe and, while what we have here isn’t necessarily as good as some of what we’ve seen from the comic before now, it’s perfectly good for the most part. There are a few slightly wonky panels and characters, however, but if nothing else, that suits the Extra Life quite well – it doesn’t matter if he’s off-model because he’s supposed to look like a slightly weird Sonic to begin with!

One thing worth praising this story for is giving Tails something to do. True, it was Tails that accidentally created the problem in the first place, but he’s the one to set it right. At this point in the comic’s run, Tails has actually achieved surprisingly little of his own accord, so to see him go about not only fixing his mistake but actually saving Sonic for once is a really pleasant surprise. Of course, he doesn’t make a big fuss of it or ask for thanks, but that’s just Tails being Tails, so it works really well.

Sally is also pretty fun in this story, leaping to the (admittedly quite logical) conclusion that Sonic has gone off the deep end and trashed the Emerald Hill Zone for no reason, then offering the flimsiest non-apology when it becomes clear she was mistaken. Despite her relatively minor role in Sonic the Comic, it’s nice to see Sally show a bit of personality and being a bit of a bossy-boots type who won’t be so easily swayed by Sonic fits her quite well.

Double Trouble is not likely to be go down as one of Sonic the Comic’s greatest stories, but it’s a decidedly solid effort from Millar. What could have been a boring, run-of-the-mill story with one of the most storied clichés in comics ended up being quite a fun and well-paced story!