Apparently my Sonic The Hedgehog Archie library still has mistakes, but I might have caught it sooner had I not mistaken it for another “director’s cut”. If you recall in “Yesterday’s” Comic, we’ve been going over Sonic and Tails chasing Ixis Naugus after the return of King Maximilian Acorn and his being freed of the crystal. There was a gap between issues where things happened that I remembered reading originally but wasn’t coming up in this reread. When did Naugus get here? What was that talk about dismantling Robians? I knew it happened but it seemed to be missing.
I should have checked the Sonic Super Special comics, because that’s where things went down. It got lost in the rotation somehow and when I finally saw it I thought it was a director’s cut or some other story. This is my fault and to get things back on track I’m doing a Scanning My Collection review to get caught up. I hope I don’t have to do this again. I have a bunch of Sonic Super Specials bunched together while in “Yesterday’s” Comic we have big revelations in Sonic The Hedgehog and Knuckles The Echidna coming out after these events. So let’s fix my mistake and hope the reading order doesn’t have any more mistakes like this.
No, He-Man as the superstrength. You have superspeed.
Sonic Super Special #4
Archie Comics Publications (1998)
INKER: Pam Eklund
COLORIST: Karl Bollers
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
EDITOR: J. Freddy Gabrie
“The Return Of The King”
WRITER: Karl Bollers
PENCILER: Sam Maxwell
“Down And Out In Downunda”
WRITER: Michael Gallagher
PENCILER: Nelson Ortega
The story begins with the Freedom Fighters landing in Mobotropolis, just after the fight with Mammoth Mogul. The still crystal King Acorn greets them, seemingly with his senses intact. However, Sonic and company seem to have taken leave of theirs. Antoine, Sonic, Geoffrey, Tails, and Sally all chime in that the “Robians” can’t be trusted because who knows what layered programming they have? Suddenly, the King is taken by both rage and the crystal as it covers the rest of his body. He orders the Robians dismantled at once and the army is on the move!
Several hours later, the Freedom Fighters land in Mobotropolis, just after the fight with Mammoth Mogul…wait, didn’t we do that already? Only this time the ship is attacked from the ground and crashes. Our heroes are quite confused, especially after hearing from one soldier that THEY were the ones who started this flesh and metal civil war. I think the first clue something was wrong was Geoffrey and Sonic agreeing on something.
Ducking into a building to avoid the fighting, then end up in the fighting. Specifically surrounded by Robians, which on the plus side includes Uncle Chuck and his parents, since Chuck is what keeps the Robians from shooting Sonic and his friends right now. Then the soldier from earlier shoots Uncle Chuck. For those of you who forgot previous events (which would be my fault), Sonic has the real Sword Of Acorns, after having a fake last time thanks to Mammoth Mogul swiping it. Sally and his parents talk Sonic out of using it on the soldier, then the sword starts glowing, repairing Chuck and freeing the soldier’s mind, who is also confused. A lot of that going around today.
Now with a breather, our heroes try to figure out who could be behind this, and they come to one answer: Ixis Naugus. Sonic confronts the wizard, now able to take over the king thanks to his anger and hate pushing the crystal over him. The Sword Of Acorns manages to free everyone else’s minds in the courtroom and Ixis beats a retreat, threatening to thrown himself over the ledge and letting the king shatter while he escapes. Sonic manages to catch the king but ends up going over with him, the magic of the Sword saving them both and freeing the King at the cost of being full crystal for keeps…until some kids find the sword and try to pull it from the stone…really, Bollers? This bit? The King pulls it out through the power of symbolism and the Crown appears out of nowhere, the narrator going on some nonsense about the “Hall Of Limbo” in his mind being where it was hiding.
“Forget the robots, it’s the rock people that are our real enemies!” “Um, Dad, crystal is a type of rock.” “You dare?”
I’ve had to deal with a lot of rushed endings lately, so I’m a little more sensitive to it than I would be otherwise, but I guess for whatever reason Bollers wanted to be done with this storyline and didn’t have the Crown elsewhere, since if memory serves he needed both to be restored to flesh and fur. Otherwise, it’s a good story, and we’ll see the aftermath in later stories.
The back-up, which in one way we needed to fill in one final gap, probably is the reason this ends quickly, to have time for the story of how Bunnie and Antoine escaped Downunda and became a couple. It’s really the same panels worked into the “Director’s Cut” of Sonic The Hedgehog #50 two issues later, but they couldn’t have known they’d be doing that at the time. So adding it here is welcome, but later rendered unnecessary (unless the reader didn’t bother getting it, figuring they already had #50), with the only addition here being confirmation that the Downunda Freedom Fighters managed to defeat Crocbot, which we’d see in the main story anyway.
Overall it’s a nice, if sped up (no pun intended) Sonic story that wraps up the King’s condition and the disagreements between Mobian and Robian. It leads into Sonic and Tails going after Ixis, and while I’ve been having trouble being as invested in this new readthrough as I was when they first came out for reasons I’ve mentioned in the “Yesterday’s” Comic review, it’s still a good story. Even the back-up was welcome until it was placed back into #50 as it should have been. I liked it for the most part, whatever my issues with getting back into this run now as the enjoyment of elements of the SatAM elements have dimmed over time and hindsight of the whole Penders debacle aftermath takes something away from it, admittedly more the former than the latter in this title and the reverse in Knuckles comics.
Now I should hopefully be caught up, but there’s still that reading order to sort out for the reviews.
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