INFO BURST

Format: Comic strip
Initial Release Date: 19/2/94
Feature character: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Doctor Ivo Robotnik
Other Characters: Miles “Tails” Prower, Badniks (Turtloids, Rexxon), Chief Kordon, Super Sonic
Locations: Mobius, West Side Island, Hill Top Zone
Items: Bi-plane, Seismatron
Continuity: Sonic the Comic
Synopsis: Sonic and Tails are summoned to the Hill Top Zone, where they meet Chief Kordon, leader of the Hill Top tribe. Kordon tells Sonic that the Mountain of Destiny – a nearby volcano – has become active and without aid, the homes of the tribe will soon be destroyed. Kordon fears the gods are angry with the tribespeople, but Sonic – not believing in the supernatural – offers his help. Sonic and Tails lower themselves into the volcano by one of the cable carts but end up being tipped out of the cart by a Rexxon Badnik. With the intense heat of the volcano, Tails isn’t strong enough to carry Sonic to safety, but it’s soon made a moot point as Sonic transforms into Super Sonic. After Super Sonic destroys the Rexxon, Tails leads him into a cavern in the volcano, where the two discover Robotnik’s Seismatron, a device which is responsible for the volcano going active. Robotnik has the device cause an eruption and Tails only manages to escape by grabbing onto Super Sonic’s leg as the latter flies out of the volcano at super speed. Super Sonic doesn’t care if the Hill Top tribe die, but Tails tricks him into assisting by implying Super Sonic is evidently not powerful enough to do so. Super Sonic whizzes around the erupting plume of lava at super speed, cooling it and, his energy expended, he returns to regular Sonic. Sonic has no memory of what Super Sonic did, but he remembers something he did as he began to transform back – having cooled the lava into the shape of a giant statue of himself.

CREDITS

Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Ferran Rodriguez
Letterer: Ellie de Ville

Review

For this story, writer Nigel Kitching gives Sonic and Tails an adventure largely detached from the threat of Doctor Robotnik, even if he is the root of the problem. What we end up getting as a result is something of a mixed bag. As ever, the dialogue between Sonic and Tails sparkles as Kitching truly understands what makes these characters’ interactions both interesting and fun. Sonic not being as upset at being attacked by the Rexxon as he is at the fact he was wrong is a great line and a gag from Kitching and artist Ferran Rodriguez’ first strip being cemented as a character trait for Tails – the fox’s tendency to state the obvious (a fun little bit of leaning into how weird necessary expository dialogue would sound when said aloud).

Perhaps a bit more unusual is Sonic’s tendency to be a so abrasive in this story, and that’s putting it very politely. Usually Sonic’s rudeness is quite funny but here he’s so outright disrespectful to Chief Kordon that even Tails has to chastise him. It’s one thing for Sonic to not share the spiritual beliefs the Hill Top tribe hold, it’s another entirely when he cools the lava into a statue of himself for him to suggest they’ll finally have something worth admiring. This, unfortunately, goes beyond the usual cheekiness Sonic shows in Sonic the Comic and enters into outright arrogance, and he’s never particularly punished for it either.

Unfortunately, the art doesn’t do too much to help this one either. In Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit), the Hill Top Zone is largely shades of blue. Here, Rodriguez elected to give it a more realistic hue. Regrettably, this means the story is very brown, resulting in a loss of visual identity for the Zone. Sonic and Tails are nicely expressive as Rodriguez never struggled to render the two of them like so many other early Sonic the Comic artists did, but they’re lost in a sea of browns and occasional oranges, which is a real pity.

The story’s big surprise is also something of a let down. Super Sonic makes his second STC appearance but he’s oddly subdued, feeling very much like a more generic version of himself, ranting about how he’s going to “destroy everything, destroy, destroy!” This doesn’t make him seem as threatening as he did in his debut where the much more small-scale threat of him killing one innocent animal made his awful ambitions far more tangible and concerning. In fact, he seems to go along with what Tails suggests rather easily. One supposes it’s easy enough to put these early appearances down to Super Sonic becoming more uncontrollable over time, but it’s certainly highly unusual to see him standing still and conversing with Tails and Robotnik (the latter via camera).

While it’s nice to have a story where Sonic gets to display his speed to do something unique and it’s definitely nice to have a story that isn’t just Sonic versus a mechanical threat, this one ends up leaving the reader wanting that bit more.