INFO BURST

Format: Comic strip
Initial Release Date: 27/11/93
Feature character: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Hero of the Year Compere
Other Characters: Miles “Tails” Prower, Badniks (unnamed skull Badniks)
Locations: Mobius, West Side Island, Metropolis Zone, Emerald Hill Zone
Items: Mega Mack
Continuity: Sonic the Comic
Synopsis: Sonic, disguised as Bob Beaky, and Tails, his identifying appendages covered by a coat, attend the Hero of the Year Award ceremony, in which Sonic is in the running for winner. Tails remarks the ceremony is an obvious trap but Sonic is unperturbed. Sure enough, Sonic ends up winning the award and takes the opportunity to address Robotnik and warn him the Freedom Fighters he’s assembled have only just begun to fight. Equally sure enough, the trap is sprung as a glass dome is dropped onto Sonic and Mega Mack is pumped in. Sonic blows the top off the trap by running at super speed, likening it to shaking up a bottle of cola. Sonic and Tails make their escape back to the Emerald Hill Zone but Sonic confuses Tails by sitting in the open with his award. Sonic explains that their escape was too easy and Robotnik had planned to track the two of them back to their secret base using a homing device hidden in the award. As if on cue, the compere from the award ceremony arrives, flanked by Badniks, but Sonic has the home field advantage and uses his home Zone to take the Badniks out, assisted by Tails. The compete flees and the former captives of the Badnik offer their thanks to Sonic, who for once is gracious enough to tell them it’s all in a day’s work.

CREDITS

Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Brian Williamson (black and white) & Steve White (colours)
Letterer: Ellie de Ville

Review

Despite having already staked his claim to being the runaway one-to-watch of Sonic the Comic’s initial crop of writers, Nigel Kitching hadn’t yet cemented himself as the de facto head writer of the comic. To that end, we have this middle of the road adventure, at least more visibly set in the world of Mobius R.B.R., but not particularly doing anything terribly daring.

What’s interesting here is how Sonic willingly walks directly into a clear trap just to make a point. This isn’t the only time the character will do that across Sonic media but what is fun about this instance is Sonic chooses to do this not to smash a fleet of Badniks or to unravel a great plan of Robotnik’s but to simply get a live microphone and rally the people of Mobius. This is the first time the term “Freedom Fighters” is used in the comic to refer to Sonic’s group of close friends who battle Robotnik and part of being a freedom fighter is getting your message out there. Certainly there’s no other benefit to Sonic’s actions in this story, as stopping Robotnik from finding his secret hideout has the same exact end result as if he’d simply not attended the award show at all. The difference is, Sonic got people to listen. Admittedly, he could have simply not brought the award home to the Emerald Hill Zone but one supposes he felt the need to make a point.

And that’s really all there is to the plot itself. Sonic prevents Robotnik from gaining any ground, sure, but it feels like this is a pretty minor victory for Sonic as well. The only real reward for Sonic’s success this time around is he frees a few more Mobians from Badnik captivity. That’s no big problem, of course, and to Sonic that would obviously be a huge victory every single time. Unfortunately, to the reader, we’ve seen Sonic free people from Badniks in almost every single issue of the comic up to now, so we’re left wanting more.

If the story isn’t great, the art is substantially worse. Steve White’s colour choices are a little unusual to say the least, with purples and oranges clashing with the rest of the scenes in a number of panels, but the real issue with the art is Brian Williamson’s line art. Almost every single panel of the story looks rushed and Sonic and Tails in particular are drawn inconsistently (oddly, Sonic’s Bob Beaky disguise looks great!) and, to be frank, downright ugly almost throughout. Unfortunately, the combination of the two ends up being a complete and total mess. Sonic the Comic had established it’s better than this by now. There are multiple artists, not least among which Richard Elson that leave this state of affairs looking amateurish.

Unfortunately, then, Hero of the Year is something of an early dud from Kitching, who has already written stories much stronger than this and would go on to write some of the most acclaimed Sonic stories in the entire oeuvre. They can’t all be brilliant, of course, and if this is indicative of Kitching’s less good stuff than at least being middle of the road is better than being outright dire!