“Just throw characters everywhere. That’ll generate excitement.” [facepalm]
Archie Comics Publications (2000)
COVER ART: Spaz & Penders
COVER COLOR: Josh D. Ray
COMIC COLORS/SEPARATIONS: Josh & Aimee Ray
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
EDITOR: J.F Gabrie
Sonic The Hedgehog: “Law Of The Land
PLOT: Evan Skolnick
WRITER: Jim Spivey
ARTISTS: Suzanne Paddock & Harvo
Knuckles The Echidna: “The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times”
WRITER: Ken Penders
ARTISTS: Steven Butler & Pam Eklund
Our Sonic adventure feels like a back-up story that was put in the wrong spot. Warm-up story, maybe? Sonic is dragged to a zone where Robotnik is a computer judge in the city of Litigopolis, framed for the actions of Evil Sonic. Since this is a parody of extreme judicial systems and frivolous lawsuits, Sonic save the day by committing so many misdemeanors that the Judgmental Unrelenting Digitized Government Enforcer (J.U.D.G.E.) explodes, since this computer is our Robotnik appearance, with Snively as the prosecutor and Sally as council for the defense. This was dumb. Fun dumb, but still dumb. I’m not sure J.U.D.G.E. even has authority outside of it’s own dimension, and I’m curious what that zone’s Sonic is up to. Also, Sonic…you and Sally are a couple now. Trying to smooch her AU counterpart before Zonic helps you get back home is so not cool, man! It’s still technically cheating.
As for Knuckles, the celebration of his mother and Wyn’s marriage is interrupted on multiple fronts. The Dingos are tired of waiting for their own space and plan to lodge a very violent protest. Meanwhile, Knuckles and the Chaotix try to find the Dark Legion to get the jump on them for a change, and the Guardians have the same idea. Dimitri is still around, and enacts his plans, sending Echidnopolis to another zone, with only Knuckles managing to escape and Julie-Su being kidnapped because she’s technically family and shouldn’t be locked away in Dimitri’s mind.
Hindsight makes this confusing. Knowing Penders will eventually take all of his additions to Knuckles lore with him, and admittedly he didn’t know that at the time, why is this story here? This is one of those “here’s all the stuff I wanted to do crammed in as much as possible” stories, which will continue in Sonic The Hedgehog #88. Maybe this is around the time he was leaving and wanted to get everything shoved in there. I hate when writers do this, either because they’re leaving or the title is ending and they really want to get everything in there whether the presentation works or not. It results in “stuff happening” without any real thought or decent story flow, and that’s the case here as well.
So overall, this wasn’t that great. The back/warm-up story is fun but unnecessary fluff, and the main story is just “I came up with these ideas and by thunder you’re going to know what you missed out on!”. That mindset has ruined series for me. For the best example, go check out my old Buck Rogers from Dynamite Comics reviews. Then see that the last issue did this and ruined the ending of the series for me. Please stop doing this. I’m sorry you didn’t get to finish your story but insisting you show it off like this makes me not care no matter how much I enjoyed the rest of it and just puts me off.
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