This isn’t what they mean by AI art.
Sonic The Hedgehog #39
Archie Comics (October, 1996)
“Rage Against The Machine”
WRITER: Mike Gallagher
PENCILER: Pat Spaziante
INKER: Brian Thomas
COLORIST: Barry Grossman
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
EDITOR: Freddy Mendez-Gabrie
Sonic wants to get himself roboticized hoping this time Rotor’s mind protecting gadget will keep his free will intact. The plan is rejected by everybody, so it looks bad for him when Nack The Weasel manages to escape prison and capture Sonic. He brings him to Robotnik, who indeed does roboticize Sonic and sends his “Mecha-Sonic” to attack Knothole. Mecha-Sonic manages to not only best Bunnie but when Knuckles is called in to help he too goes down. Sally has one last plan…but it may not be one she wants to implement. The story continues in the Mecha Madness special.
What they got right: We’re starting to go close to the SatAM tone, which is a better idea when using those characters. Sonic’s plan makes a bit of sense but they also have good reason to reject it. I like the design of Mecha-Sonic. It looks really cool and it’s too bad they couldn’t find an alternate way to use it again in the future, maybe as a Sonic battlesuit or something.
What they got wrong: Gallagher can’t stop himself from injecting humor into this. Tails is happy he’s getting some better treatment so Sally out of nowhere treats him like a kid. The usual fourth wall breaks and Earth cultural references show up again. It just breaks the tone and the Tails bit especially is distracting. He also keeps referencing previous stories which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Finally, it wasn’t the fault of Rotor’s device that it fell off of Sally prior to her forced roboticization so we have no actual proof that it wouldn’t work to protect Sonic, but we also have an upgraded mind-control feature in the process so we really don’t know.
What I think overall: This is a decent start to the “Mecha Madness” story arc. We’ll have to see where it goes.
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