INFO BURST

Format: Comic strip
Initial Release Date: 24/7/93
Feature character: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Arachbot
Other Characters: Miles “Tails” Prower, Badniks (Aquis), Johnny Lightfoot, Sally Acorn, Animal Friends
Locations: Mobius, South Island, Green Hill Zone, Labyrinth Zone
Items: X
Continuity: Sonic the Comic
Synopsis: Sonic’s morning routine is interrupted when Arachbot kidnaps Tails and drags him away to the Labyrinth Zone, which stretches under almost half of Mobius. Sonic, Sally, Johnny and another of Sonic’s friends pursue, finding themselves dodging the deadly traps of the Labyrinth Zone. Arachbot has been charged with bringing Tails to Robotnik so he can be converted back into his “Robofox” exoskeleton. Sonic manages to catch up to Arachbot, busting the Aquis Badniks flanking him. Arachbot tells Sonic he is a Prime Badnik – pure robot with no need for a captive prisoner to power him. Suddenly, the Zone floods but Sonic gets an idea as his friends escape – he releases the oil in the exoskeleton into the water and then uses its weapons system to fire a burst of flame, igniting the oil and engulfing Arachbot in flames, destroying him. Satisfied with a job well done, Sonic returns to enjoy his breakfast – hot dogs galore.

CREDITS

Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Woodrow Phoenix
Letterer: John Aldrich

Review

Unfortunately, after the last two Sonic stories in Sonic the Comic, this one is a decided step backwards. Instantly, the reader is taken aback by the art, which is easily the most untidy and sloppy the comic has seen yet. Regrettably, it does little to improve as the story goes on, with characters in weird poses, a noticeable inconsistency in how characters are drawn and backgrounds which range from uninspired to unappealing.

To make matters worse, the story does little to buoy the art. It’s admittedly quite fun to get a glimpse at what Sonic’s morning routine might look like and it represents some unique personality from Mark Millar’s take on the characters. The joke about Sonic’s breakfast table has two hundred burgers on it but Tails shouldn’t worry as Sonic will only eat them one at a time is really excellent. Unfortunately, things nosedive from there, once again spearheaded by disastrous art which makes the limbs of the spider-like Arachbot look like lengthy pieces of streaky bacon.

What follows sees Sonic mount a fairly dull rescue mission with Sally, Johnny – who doesn’t say anything throughout – and an unnamed cow we’ll never see again. The traps of the Labyrinth Zone aren’t overcome through a display of skilful use of Sonic’s abilities but instead feel more like examples of what traps in a dungeon might look like for Sonic and his friends to simply walk past. There’s just no peril present.

This lack of peril sadly extends to the villain of the piece, which is a real shame as Arachbot presents something new and interesting. A Badnik who’s all machine and, we can infer, powerful enough to not need an organic battery should be cause for concern for Sonic. But, ultimately, the two don’t even get to trade blows – and Arachbot’s two Aquis henchmen are dispatched of in an instant, little more than fodder. It’s admittedly pretty smart of Sonic to use the Robofix exoskeleton against Arachbot to defeat the robot but an example of Sonic’s usual methods of attack failing first might have helped raise the stakes to the point of him needing to think outside the box. Of course, the elephant in the room is the logic of Sonic’s means of defeating Arachbot. He remarks that Arachbot is crazy to think that he (Sonic) doesn’t know how to use the weapons system on the Robofox exoskeleton – but there’s absolutely no reason Sonic should know this information, or how to release the oil from the suit in the first place. It’s very tempting to handwave this sort of stuff away by saying it doesn’t matter as the comic was written with children in mind – but it’s far more important to be mindful of the fact children aren’t stupid and there has to be some kind of logic in a situation like this for it to make sense. A perhaps more elegant solution for the sake of character and storytelling would have been Sonic stumbling into the same end result by pure accident through pressing every button on the suit, then pretending to his friends he’d meant to do it all along. That kind of characterisation ends up being something of a signature of this version of Sonic, never able to admit when he’s fluked his way into victory despite knowing deep down that’s exactly what he’s done but, again, it was early days and the groundwork hadn’t been fully laid so it’s difficult to fault Millar too much.

With Arachbot defeated, things return to normal pretty well immediately. What this effectively means is Arachbot’s grand contribution to the plot was kidnapping Tails, taking him a slight distance from home and then being immolated. It’s hardly world-beating stuff, is it? And, unfortunately, neither is this almost entirely pointless story which ends just as it began, with nothing really changing in between the two points.