“Will someone turn the lights on?”
Sonic Universe #7
Archie Comics (October 2009)
“30 Years Later” part 3: “What’s Old Is New Again”
WRITER: Ian Flynn
PENCILER: Tracey Yardley
INKER: Jim Amash
COLORIST: Jason Jensen
LETTERER: Teresa Davidson
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Paul Kaminski
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
As Sally takes the unconscious Silver and her kids to the panic room “hidey-room”, Sonic and Lara-Su along with the Prower kids meet with Argyll, Vector’s son. Argyll has some guests: Bunny and Antoine’s kids, both cyborgs. Together, the group head back to the castle to kick the Dark Presence out. What they don’t know is that Shadow has been resurrected, and he’s about to release a big nasty on Mobius. Even Lien-Da thinks this is overkill, and Shadow simply destroys the device that keeps her connected to the “30 Years Later” time line. As the “Freedom Fighters” take the castle back, Shadow unleashes Tikhaos, which resembles the Chaos Monster from the Sonic Adventure adaptation.
What they got right: I just love the character reactions and interactions here, every one of them. Sonia’s reaction to learning there are bad guys in the castle. Argyll “geeking out” when Sonic calls the Freedom Fighters to action. Lara-Su’s and Argyll’s reactions to the D’Coolettes’ flirtations. Even Shadow’s going off the deep end just make for great characterization. It is always the little touches that make a comic world feel real, even with it’s a fictional world. The art is a bonus.
What they got wrong: The only two lines I’m keeping from the original review: How did Bunny have kids when…that area…is all robotic? But what I can’t get past is why the D’Coolette kids are cyborgs! Just how far into your DNA did Robotnik’s “Roboticizer” go anyway? Everything else is new. Tikhaos, which appears to be Tikal somehow merged with Perfect Chaos, just feels too much like “it’s an alternate timeline so we can do anything we want”. There are more alterations to this timeline than I realize because neither should be here separately, nevermind together. I was only guessing that Lien-Da was kept in this alternate time. The captions tie it to Sonic The Hedgehog #166, which not an issue I have so I don’t know what happened there. That’s a mistake on my part. It’s odd that Shadow has gone this far into pure evil, though. Maria (who is still important to him as her name is the passcode to get into where Tikhaos is kept) would hate what he’s become.
Recommendation: Back in the day I would have wanted this to be a full series, and it is kind of a shame it wasn’t. However, since my rereading of the Archie run hasn’t wowed me like it did back then I’m more okay with it today than I was during the original review. Tastes changes, but it’s still a good story so far.
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