“Will someone turn off that water faucet already?”
Sonic The Hedgehog #73
Archie Comics Publications (August, 1999)
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
EDITOR: J.F. Gabrie
“The Truth Is Out There”
WRITER: Karl Bollers
PENCILER: Steven Butler
INKER: Pam Eklund
COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo
Tales Of The Great War: “The Big Bad One”
WRITER: Ken Penders
PENCILER: Art Mawhinney
INKER: Jim Amash
COLORIST: Barry Grossman
Sonic presents his parents with wedding bands forged from power rings thanks to Chuck and Nate. Elias confides in Sally that he doesn’t want to become the next rule of the Mobians. Later, Sally calls the former Freedom Fighters together to tell them of the satellites Nicole picked up, linking them to each of the recent problems they had. Meanwhile, the returned Robotnik has activated all the satellites and merged them into an orbital platform, sending a signal that calls away all the Robians from Knothole.
There isn’t a lot to say because a lot of this story is exposition, as our heroes put clues together. The moment with Elias and Sally was nice, and the bit with the wedding bands will come into play later, but there really isn’t a lot to discuss here. However, it was needed to help transition into the next phase of the comic.
The back-up feature takes place prior to this story (noted in thc comic) as Tails and Amy Rose are still in the library. Uncle Chuck comes by, having used the library as part of his research for years of being a double agent against Robotnik. Using what he learned from Robotnik’s files, he fills in the next series of events, as Ixis travels into the Zone Of Silence to await the outcome of the Mobian/Overlander war he and Kodos have been fostering, also avoiding an attempt on his life by Kodos. Meanwhile, Kodos and his goons find two scouts, one from each side, planning to convince their people not to engage in war by lying about the advantages of their would-be enemies. He kills them, and warps their plan by using their bodies to convince each side the other are barbarians.
Does Kodos hate Overlanders this much or is he planning to use the war to cover up his own plans of conquest? Also, both scouts appear to be kids, around the age Sonic and company are usually depicted as based on the Mobian’s design. There is a surprising number of kid deaths and misunderstandings in this story.
Overall, the first story does a good job setting up the next arc and the latter is a decent explanation of how the war got started. I’m not getting into these comics anymore, but they’re still pretty good.
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