Not going to give me anything to work with this issue, eh?
Sonic The Hedgehog #80
Archie Comic Publications (March, 2000)
Beginning the Sonic Adventure tie in proper, except they still seem to be trying to reconcile the two continuities.
COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo
EDITOR/STORY OUTLINE: J.F. Gabrie
Sonic: “If Wishes Were Acorns”
WRITERS/ARTISTS: Karl Bollers & James Fry
INKER: Andrew Pepoy
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
Knuckles: “Landfall”
WRITERS/ARTISTS: Ken Penders & Steve Butler
INKER: Pam Eklund
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
Big The Cat: “Swallowing Trouble”
WRITER/INKER: Ken Penders
PENCILER: Jim Valentino
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
The first story has the aftermath of Amy’s wish. She decided to pull an Arisia and aged herself up, except not for her crush but to go on the mission. While Sonic acknowledges physical age doesn’t mean she matured (someone should have told Hal Jordan), Nate still wants her along in case he can get a chance to study her before she changes back. This is a bit concerning considering Amy’s character in the franchise is the girl chasing Sonic, and here she’s still Tails’ age but physically Sonic’s. She also cost Elias the wish that might have restored the Queen, so good going, Amy! We learn that the overlanders in the city have five fingers, keeping in line with the story over the cartoon, and acknowledging that both Sonic and Tails also have five fingers. Okay. Soon they arrive at the city, and thanks to the layout this is where the story ends.
Back on the (former) Floating Island, Knuckles gets an update from his ancestors while the Chaotix meet their new neighbors, a tribe of cats. Using Hunter’s actions at the end of Knuckles’ solo comic to get past the Guardians having observation tech that Knuckles’ game counterpart doesn’t allows the theft of the Chaos Emerald to happen, but I don’t know enough about the game to know what happened to the Chaotix or if the cat tribe is just here to keep them out of the game events. It does feel like that’s what they’re here for, though.
The final story follows game characters Big The Cat and his friend Froggy. Froggy decides to drink from a moving puddle of water for some reason, and absorbs part of the Chaos creature, so he’s captured by one of Robo-Robotnik’s Omega units, clearly marked 102 as he has a part to play in Sonic Adventure. Big decides to rescue his friend, and that’s how they’re drawn into the game and adapted into this comic. Not coming from any prior show means it just sets up their character arcs in the game.
And that’s what this is, another set-up story trying to reconcile two continuities so the game adaptation doesn’t interfere with regular Archie canon. I still they would have been better off as a separate miniseries since Knuckles The Echidna was over and Sonic Universe and Sonic X were still years away, but I wasn’t working at Archie at the time so I don’t know what their sales were like on Sonic and company.
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