INFO BURST
Format: Book
Initial Release Date: 1993
Feature character: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Doctor Ivo Robotnik
Other Characters: Uncle Chuck, Muttski, Badniks (SWATbot, chicken robot [presumably Cluck], Buzz Bomber), Sally Acorn
Locations:Mobius, Uncle Chuck’s home, Uncle Chuck’s workshop, Chuck’s Chilli Dogs, Robotnik’s Factory, Great Forest, Knothole Village
Items: Ring, Power Sneakers, Ro-Bo-Machine
Continuity: Troll Associates
Synopsis:
Mobius chokes under the influence of its dictator, Doctor Robotnik whose factories pollute the air. Robotnik has closed all public services and outlawed fun. But Mobius wasn’t always like this. Years ago, Robotnik was an orphan who lived under the care of Sonic’s Uncle Chuck, a kindly inventor with whom Sonic also lived. While Sonic’s primary interest was running as fast as he could while helping others, Robotnik was only interested in creating robots to follow his own selfish orders. Sonic suspects Robotnik is stealing Chuck’s equipment in order to make his robots. Uncle Chuck has invented a Magic Power Ring to help boost Sonic’s speed and strength. Unseen by Sonic or Uncle Chuck, Robotnik swipes the steering parts from Chuck’s tractor to make his latest robot – which soon proves disastrous when Chuck drives the tractor and cannot steer it away from Robotnik and his robot.
The robot is destroyed by the impact and Robotnik and Chuck end up stuck up a tree. Using the Magic Power Ring, Sonic is able to free Robotnik and Chuck easily and help them to hospital.
Soon, Uncle Chuck continues to make more Rings for Sonic and Robotnik returns to making his robots. One of the robots confesses to Chuck that Robotnik has been stealing Chuck’s belongings for use in his robotics, including Chuck’s tractor’s steering parts. Chuck grounds Robotnik as punishment. In the coming weeks, as Sonic and Uncle Chuck make more Rings, Robotnik swipes parts from all the household appliances he can. He constructs a huge robot which smashes down the front door of Uncle Chuck’s house and grabs the kindly elder hedgehog as Robotnik declares he’s through with Chuck. Sonic is able to defeat the robot by tangling it up in the garden hose, causing it to trip uselessly to the ground. Robotnik swears vengeance and leaves.
Eight years later, nobody has heard from Robotnik since the day he left Chuck’s. Sonic, now fifteen years old, has become faster than ever and now has a pet dog named Muttski. Sonic works as delivery boy for Uncle Chuck’s food stand, Chuck’s Chilli Dogs. On returning from a delivery, Sonic is gifted a pair of new sneakers designed by Chuck that won’t burn up or get destroyed by Sonic’s super speed – they also help him run even faster. Chuck receives a phone call ordering two hundred chilli dogs, the biggest order the food stand has ever received. Together, he and Sonic load the food into a wheelbarrow and Sonic sets off to the delivery address. As Sonic leaves, Chuck and Muttski are surrounded by five robots – and Robotnik. Chuck realises Robotnik placed the order to get Sonic away from the food stand. Robotnik has declared himself the new King of Mobius and Chuck is under arrest for the crimes of laughing and dancing. Robotnik’s SWATbots set about destroying the food stand as Chuck worries about the trap Sonic must be headed into.
Sonic arrives at the delivery location, finding it to be a run down factory pouring thick smoke into the air. The factory is revealed to be a deadly booby trap designed to destroy Sonic. Sonic evades the traps and realises if the delivery was a trap, Uncle Chuck could be in danger too. On escaping and returning to the food stand, Sonic finds it destroyed and Uncle Chuck and Muttski gone. He destroys the SWATbots at the scene and finds evidence they were created by Robotnik. Working out the factory must have been Robotnik’s, Sonic heads back, hoping to free Uncle Chuck and Muttski.
Sonic prepares to rush into the factory, but is stopped by a girl, who identifies herself as Princess Sally Acorn, daughter of Mobius’ rightful king. She advises Sonic that the SWATbots are ready to arrest anyone who enters the factory. She tells him that Robotnik has not only captured the King, Uncle Chuck and Muttski, but most of the people of Mobius. He intends to put them through the Ro-Bo-Machine to turn them into robotic slaves. Sally says she knows a shortcut to the Ro-Bo-Machine and Sonic allows her to lead the way in hopes of stopping Robotnik’s plan.
The two arrive at the Ro-Bo-Machine and find it has already been put to use, converting the people of Mobius into mindless slaves for Robotnik to work day and night in his factories. Unfortunately, Uncle Chuck and Muttski have been captured and converted into slaves. Sonic, overcome by emotion, rushes towards his beloved uncle and pet.
At Robotnik’s command, SWATbots seize Sonic and another captures Sally as she tries to help her new friend. However, Sonic has the Magic Power Ring, which gives him the speed and strength to break free and smash the SWATbots. Sonic and Sally escape with the entranced Chuck and Muttski, though lament the fact they could not find Sally’s father. Sally tells Sonic she would like to share a secret with him to help the fight against Robotnik and tells him to head for the Great Forest, where they’ll meet with some of her friends.
Sally tells Sonic that she and a group of her friends formed a group called the Freedom Fighters to fight back against Robotnik and rid Mobius of his rule. The group live in Knothole Village, a secret underground settlement in the forest. Sally extends an invitation to Sonic to join the Freedom Fighters and he gladly accepts, offering his speed in service of freeing Mobius. Safely in Knothole Village, Sonic gets an idea and wields the Magic Power Ring, filling the room with golden light. When the light subsides, Uncle Chuck and Muttski are returned to their normal selves. Uncle Chuck notes this means the Rings can be used to return Robotnik’s other prisoners to normalcy. Sonic, now a member of the Freedom Fighters, is determined to use his Rings to defeat Robotnik and restore Mobius to the place it used to be – a place where having fun was the most important thing anyone could do.
CREDITS
Story: Michael Tietelbaum
Cover Art: Greg Wray
Interior Illustrations: Glen Hanson
Review
Given Sega of America were responsible for the creation of the “Sonic Bible,” a series handbook designed to flesh out the backstory of the world of the Sonic the Hedgehog video games, one would be forgiven for thinking America would be the territory that most rigidly stuck to that backstory. Instead, if anything they abandoned it almost immediately following the initial 1991 promotional comic book. Here in its place is another suggested backstory and origin for Sonic and Doctor Robotnik which doesn’t quite seem to work as well.
Following a prologue setting up the current state of Mobius, the story proper begins with a flashback to Sonic and Robotnik in their childhood, a childhood shared with Sonic’s Uncle Chuck who, for some reason, is Robotnik’s caregiver in this situation. Absolutely no effort is made to explain why this would be the case and the whole scenario borders on the twee. To be totally frank, the whole endeavour feels like it began life as another story and happened to have Sonic and Robotnik pasted over the top of it. Perhaps the worst sin of it all, however, is the fact it just feels entirely superfluous. Robotnik wants to turn all of Mobius into his mindless robotic slaves – he doesn’t need a personal connection to Sonic or Uncle Chuck to do that, yet around half of the story is given away to a backstory that doesn’t particularly add anything to any of the characters involved. It would almost be a tighter narrative (if, admittedly, a significantly shorter one) if the story began after the time skip to Sonic at age fifteen.
The second half of the story, though, in the present day, is stronger. Though the story moves at a blistering speed to get through each of its major beats, most of what we get is fun! The relationship between Sonic and Sally is immediately enjoyable, with Sally showcasing her leadership skills and her ability to take command of a situation (and of Sonic!), which are the most appealing traits in any well-written version of the character. She and Sonic feel like a very natural pairing and it’s certainly a little telling that the chemistry between them is so instant compared to how Sonic and Uncle Chuck’s relationship makes them feel more like generic archetypal characters.
Unfortunately, Robotnik is left a little undercooked by this part of the story. We learn his motivations and the means he has to enact them, but it feels as though he’s missing something here. It probably doesn’t help that he isn’t outright defeated, leaving him hanging in place. While this definitely sets Robotnik up as the threat for future stories, it does mean his appearance here is somewhat unsatisfying. One can’t help but think that dropping the flashback to instead write a more climactic end to the tale may have helped as Uncle Chuck and Muttski’s return to normalcy is so rushed that even the hero side don’t get much of a satisfying victory either.
The story is ultimately victim to a lot of minor irritations here and there. Uncle Chuck determines early on that he’ll have to do something about Sonic’s shoes burning up from his speed, but doesn’t give him the Power Sneakers until after the time skip – it took him eight years to create the shoes? The art, while obviously not the selling point, doesn’t convey what happens to Robotnik’s slaves – in fact, none of them look to be turned into robots, they seem to be hypnotised, though that’s obviously not a failing of the text itself. This is also the first instance of the all-important question that has bothered continuity for years to come, “What animal is Sally anyway?” asserting here that she’s a chipmunk despite her game counterpart being a squirrel and her later being called a woodchuck in other continuities. None of these issues are ruinous to the story (and the latter really is nitpicking as if she’s a chipmunk here than she’s presumable a chipmunk in all the stories to follow this continuity) but they do hint at a lack of polish.
In the end, this is a decent enough take on this version of Sonic’s origin story, though the problem is the story itself is flawed. Later tales in this continuity would tell more complete stories, meaning this is a bit of a shaky first entry necessary to set up later, more satisfying adventures.
 RAVES |  GRAVES |
| The dynamic between Sonic and Sally is well portrayed. | The idea of Robotnik as an orphan in Uncle Chuck’s care simply isn’t a comfortable fit. |
| THE VERDICT | RANK |
| While some elements of this story are notably weaker than others, it does a solid job of setting up further adventures in this world by giving us characters to care about and a strong setting for those adventures. |  |
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