“Yesterday’s” Comic> Sonic The Hedgehog #97

“I’m Bathog.”

Sonic The Hedgehog #97

Archie Comic Publications (July, 2001)

COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo

EDITOR: Justin “J.F.” Gabrie

“My Secret Identity”

WRITER: Karl Bollers

PENCILERS: Nelson Ribeiro & Harvey Mercadoocasio

INKERS: Ken Penders & Pam Eklund

LETTERER: Jeff Powell

Knuckles: “To The Brink”

WRITER/INKER: Ken Penders

PENCILER: Ron Lim

LETTERER: Vickie Williams

Sonic prepares to track down the Sword Of Acorns in disguise. Then he learns that (thanks to a garbled version of Chuck’s recording) the Secret Service is going after Robotnik, believing he has the Sword. Surrounded by Shadowbots, Geoffrey surrenders, but nobody is really interrogated. We learn later that Heavy and Bomb have undergone some kind of reprogramming, and the team escapes. Back in Knothole, Sonic ditches his outfit, but then he gets caught, which will lead into an adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2.

I wonder if Bollers knew the adaptation was coming when he set all this story up? I don’t recall how long the adaptation went, but this is definitely bad timing. And all this story does is set-up what’s going to happen after the adaptation. When the Sonic Adventure (1) adaptation was coming they took time to arrange things so that the adaptation could fit into the world of the Archie take on Mobius. We didn’t get that here. Sonic barely gets to do anything, and you have to wonder what Geoffrey’s plan was, or if he even had one.

Back with Knuckles, he’s still fighting Turbo-Tails, and threatening Merlin and Athair until he mentally hears Julie-Su calling for him and teleports out. The unconscious Tails is revealed to be a different Tails from a different reality who believes he’s the Tails of this one? What? For now they’re going to let him continue to think that to find out what’s going on. This seems very convoluted. Did something happen to Tails in the time I wasn’t getting this comic?

Overall this is not a good issue. Too many unnecessary things going on in Knuckles’ backstory, or rather with Tails’, and the Sonic tale is just bidding time for the adaptation while setting up what they plan to do after it. I didn’t care for it.