What Sonic did on his summer vacation.
Sonic & Knuckles: Mecha Madness Special
Archie Comics Publications (1998)
COLORIST: Kyle Hunter
EDITOR: Freddy Mendez-Gabrie
“Mecha Madness”
WRITER: Michael Gallagher
PENCILER: Pat Spaziante
INKER: Harvey Mercadoocasio
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
The Chaotix: “Don’t Let The Island Hit You On The Way Down”
WRITER: Kent Taylor
ARTIST: Harvey Mercadoocasio
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters: “Eel Of Fortune”
WRITER: Michael Gallagher
PENCILER: Dave Manak
INKER: Rich Koslowski
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
In the main comic Sonic has been captured by Nack The Weasel and delivered to Sonic to be shoved into the Roboticizer. This is after Sally rejected Sonic’s plan to let himself be roboticized with a device to keep his free will, which of course he didn’t have on him. So the “Mecha-Sonic” attacked Knothole, leading to our main story in this comic. In order to stop Mecha-Sonic Sally is forced to follow Sonic’s plan but turning Knuckles into Mecha-Knuckles. The battle is even, with Knuckles being fresher in batter being his only advantage. But when Robotnik orders Mecha-Sonic to blast Tails the real Sonic’s personality puts up a fight and when both robots are sent flying into Robotropolis Sonic takes the blast meant for Knuckles, who brings the damaged hero back to be deroboticized along with himself. Back to normal thanks to previous issue stuff Sonic doesn’t remember what happened during his time as a robot but, believing he got himself roboticized on purpose, Sonic is arrested.
The story is primarily fighting and that works here. The designs of both roboticized heroes are good and fit the characters. They used previous events to work around their previous rules without breaking them when it comes to being deroboticized. However, it will take a later story to show Knuckles isn’t going to be another romantic rival like Geoffrey St. John, and now that I think about it the idea that this just barely matches Sonic’s plan just to have the framed traitor angle coming up in the main series feels slightly forced. Still getting those Earth pop culture references when this is supposed to be a whole other planet.
Meanwhile, the Chaotix are attacked by enemies with similar abilities: the flying Predator Hawk, the powerful Sgt. Simian, the speedy Lightning Lynx, and the high-leaping Flying Frog. Not the best names but the Chaotix manage to trick and defeat the duo before being attacked again, only this time by the immortal Mammoth Mogul, seeking to regain his lost leadership of the planet with the Island’s Chaos Emerald. The Chaotix manage to chase him off for now. This is mostly introducing a new threat if not to the Chaotix then at least to the series and we will see them again.
This doesn’t leave much room for the Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters to have a very long story. A crimeboss named Eel Capone (because this is a Michael Gallagher story) moves into the territory and he’s scary enough to even chase off Octobot…somehow. Given that his “hired mussel” does the dirty work in taking out P.B. Jellyfish he still doesn’t seem like much of a threat, especially after Bottlenose the dolphin has learned underwater ninjitsu (okay) and takes the whole gang out rather easily, bringing Eel into custody and…killing off the mussels by knocking them of a continental shelf into a chasm where the air pressure crushes them? Geez! It’s not a terrible story but not all that exciting either.
Overall that’s my view of all the stories. While the fight between Mecha-Sonic and Mecha-Knuckles is okay and maybe the week has been that draining on me but I just couldn’t get as invested as I wanted to. The good and bad just kind of balances out to stories that are okay but I don’t think this series has grown well with me.
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