ARCHIESONIC 101, MODULE 2: AN ONGOING NARRATIVE? IN MY SONIC COMICS?
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20: “THAT’S THE SPIRIT!”
TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)
Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! I’m splitting up today’s issue again, so we’ll only be looking at the cover story in this lesson. And what happens in this cover story, you ask? Well…
Soooo… I guess this is the final issue of Sonic the Hedgehog, huh? Pffft, as if. xD However when my fellow reviewer @robotnikholmescomicblog (go check out his video essays on YouTube, they’re really good!) covered this issue himself, he pointed out that if anything, this cover felt like it was marking the passing of Sonic SatAM, whose final episode aired right around the time this comic came out. Coincidence or conspiracy, who can say for sure? Anyway, let’s have a look at what the story behind this distressing cover is…
Fair enough to Sonic for enjoying their time together on the rope. Every week it's usually just Sally by herself on the rope.
Sally’s got a point - they got in here awfully easily, sailing past all those previous guards without being noticed. And now there’s no guards at all? That does seem suspicious.
“Oh no, it’s the consequences of my own actions again!”
I’m not sure Sonic would have been able to escape even if he hadn’t tripped. Surely Robotnik would have made sure when he was preparing this trap that the steel doors were spindash-proof?
Oh no, Sonic is totes dead for real, you guys! …but why do Tails and Rotor have red eyes in that middle panel? They hadn’t even started crying yet.
…huh. That’s a neat trick.
Huh. Maybe they actually did kill him off? That would be a twist.
I wonder what was more traumatic for Sonic - coming to the conclusion that he was a ghost or seeing that godawful statue of himself.
I kinda wish Sonic’s foot had gone right through that rock and then he would have fallen on his butt. Wait, if that happened he probably would have fallen right through the ground… hey wait, how is he not falling through the ground already if he’s intangible? Oh no, I think I strained my brain...
Okay, so I’m not an expert or anything, but my understanding is that this is not how antimatter works at all. When antimatter comes into contact with anything made of matter (which is pretty much everything), it explodes. Violently.
Antimatter doesn’t turn people invisible or intangible or anything like that. Other fictional appearances of antimatter make a bit more sense - I believe it’s used to fuel warp drives in Star Trek, and in Dan Brown’s novel Angels & Demons, scientists were studying it with the hope of turning it into a new energy source.
To be fair, its incorrect use in this comic doesn’t really matter that much. I imagine that Angelo Decesare just needed some kind of phlebotinum for the story and decided that antimatter sounded as good as anything else.
I feel like if Sonic really had died, Robotnik probably would have shown up to the funeral playing Amazing Grace on a vuvuzela or a recorder or an accordion or something like that.
I can’t tell if the Freedom Fighters are dressed as commandos or if they're just planning to take Robotnik down in a devastating rap battle.
Clearly no one told Robotnik that he needs to use salt to repel ghosts. He should have watched Supernatural!
Wait, Sonic knows how to fly a jet? I wouldn’t think it’d be very similar to flying a biplane, but then again what would I know? I’m certainly not a pilot.
Haha, I like this ending. The Elvis toupee is the icing on the cake.
This story is pretty fun. Sonic isn’t really given a lot of time to dwell on being, ‘dead,’ but considering what we’ll see later with Knuckles, that’s probably for the best. It’s touching to see the rest of the Freedom Fighters grieving for Sonic - even Antoine is upset at his passing, and he and Sonic don’t exactly get on very well at this stage in the series. Tails’ (almost) unshakable faith that Sonic is okay is very sweet, and his request for Sonic to ignore his letter if he is indeed dead is pretty funny.
The second story in this issue is actually a prologue to the Princess Sally mini-series, so we’re going to skip over that for now and come back to it in a few issues. Instead, join me next time when we’re in for a real treat - the first full issue drawn by Patrick Spaziante! Until then, class is dismissed!
