The problem with these pin-up cover is they give me so little to work with OR promote the story inside.
Sonic The Hedgehog #81
Archie Comics Publications (April, 2000)
COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo
EDITOR: J. F. Gabrie
Sonic The Hedgehog: “City Of Dreams”
WRITER: Karl Bollers
PENCILER: James Fry
INKERS: Andrew Pepoy & Nelson Ribeiro
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
Knuckles The Echidna: “All You Need Is A Bit Of Chaos
WRITER: Ken Penders
PENCILER: Steven Butler
INKER: Pan Eklund
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
Amy Rose: “A Rose Plucked”
WRITER: Karl Bollers
PENCILER: Chris Allan
INKER: Harvey Mercadoocasio
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
All but the editor credits come from the Grand Comics Database, since the credits page just has a bunch of last names or Harvey’s nickname, “Harvo”.
Okay, we’re going to rapid fire this one. We open on our heroes surrounded by Station Square’s authorities, but luckily Nate is friends with one of the cops. As Sally, Nate, Bunnie, and Antoine take a tour with Mayor Bulliani (not sure if that’s from the games or if Bollers was trying to be funny since Station Square does have a New York vibe in this comic) and learn the difference between Overlander and human, Sonic meets with admirers, Tails shows off his plane in the fake skies, and Amy takes center stage in the third story.
This mostly serves to show off Station Square, the city from the game, and trying to retcon it into the Archie Sonic world. Since they made this an underground city it establishes that there’s a high enough ceiling for Tails’ biplane since it’s in the game, locations in the city that the game takes place in, and separates the characters to where they need to be in the game. I guess, because I haven’t played it. That’s going to be the case throughout the book, but at least in the other two stories they have something else happen. Not a whole lot, mind you.
For example, Robo-Robotnik sends his robots after more Chaos shards as well as to hunt amphibian DNA, this portion of the story taking place before the Big The Cat story last issue. Moving ahead to the present, Knuckles finds a few shards and hides them in his gloves, finding the ruins where Chaos was locked away. Meanwhile, the Chaotix are brought to the cat people, one of their captors secretly their queen in disguise for some reason. Again, haven’t played the game. What happens next depends on what her prisoners tell her. Is this to keep the Chaotix (especially Julie-Su, who is not from the games) out of the story?
Finally, we catch up with Amy Rose as she finds her own thing to do–shopping! With what currency I couldn’t tell you. While she’s out she sees one of Robotnik’s stooges going after a green bird with some sign around its neck. She tries to fight them, surprising herself by summoning a hammer because this is when she started using what would become the Piko Piko hammer in the game franchise, which is now her signature weapon. However, she ends up getting captured, though the bird escapes to get help. This actually has some action to it, so by default it’s the best story in the comic.
These are better read as I’m doing now, together. Coming out each month leading up to the adaptation this would be rather boring. The story continues in Sonic Super Special #13, but due to not knowing where they go outside of the year, I haven’t gotten to Sonic Super Special #12 yet. We’ll get caught up on that before resuming the Sonic Adventure game adaptation.
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