#issue 13 stcb

[sonicthecomicblog]

The real Sonic has shown up and he’s just as scary looking as his clone

You know, on one hand this may seem like an overreaction by Sally, but all the same, unlike most Sonic impostors (that black hedgehog!), the extra life is nearly identical apart from the face, and he majorly fucked their shit up, so can you blame her

The subplot is resolved immediately though so it doesn’t matter

[sonicthecomicblog]

The thing I like about this story is that this is the first antagonist we encounter that isn’t related to Robotnik or one of his creations. This guy was literally created to assist Sonic and just went bonkers because he was literally confined for years and is taking it out on everybody around him. It’s kinda sad when you really think about it.

Also what are these things and how do I make sure I never see one again

[sonicthecomicblog]

Oh we’ve made it to this story huh

Yeah, so this was one of Mark’s best concepts in my opinion. Basically, one of the extra lives from the game has lost his mind from being trapped in his monitor and goes apeshit upon being released.

Despite being one of the most memorable strips from this early period, this Sonic copy would never be brought up again, and really for good reason because it raises a shitload of questions:

How do these extra lives exist in the first place? Did Kintobor get his hands on Sonic’s genetics and clone him? Were they created out of Chaos Energy? Does this imply that the original Sonic that Kintobor knew has been killed from one of Robotnik’s schemes and been replaced by one of these extra lives and everyone is none the wiser? Is it ethical to keep these creatures trapped in purgatory, potentially years or forever? This is why extra lives are almost never brought up in video game media, because it’s one of those things that just doesn’t translate into storytelling

This is also Mike Hadley’s first strip, and like a lot of the artists from this period, his stuff looks pretty

Yeah

[sonicthecomicblog]

I already went over this a few posts ago, but I have to reiterate that this is really fucked up. This poor creature was created just to be a replacement and was imprisoned for years with nothing to except wait. Like Mark clearly didn’t put any thought into it besides he’s a villain but honestly, I feel bad for the extra life more than anything else. I mean, he didn’t have to destroy everything, but I kinda get it

[sonicthecomicblog]

So they suck the clone back into his monitor, and Sonic boots the thing into fucking orbit. Like I know they had to get rid of him because he was clearly nuts and was going to just wreck more shit, but I can’t help but feel sad for the thing.

So that concludes the Sonic strip for issue 13, and I think it’s probably the best of all Mark Millar’s work for STC. It’s not an amazing story or anything, but it was by far the most inventive storyline out of his arsenal and the one filled with the most potential. The extra life gets some good lines and actually does quite a bit of damage to The Emerald Hill Zone, even though everything is fine again in the next issue. Unlike most of Mark’s stories where I complain that they’re resolved too easily, I think the idea of trapping the extra life back in his prison and just removing said prison from Earth is pretty funny, if quite grim since the clone is left to rot for the rest of eternity in limbo. The extra life never returns, and I think for good reason since there are way too many dark implications for such a character.

Mike Hadley’s art is pretty ugly, and it would stay generally ugly, but somewhat more refined as time passes. A lot of the panels are pretty dynamic and use some interesting angles, so he’s a good layout artist, if not a character one. And that’s it for Sonic this time

[sonicthecomicblog]

Issue 13, here we go.                                           

We’re not covering Ecco at this point but I might come back to it in the future because I remember the art for it being crazy. It doesn’t look so strange in this issue, but it gets weird later on

[sonicthecomicblog]

[sonicthecomicblog]

Great, both a gore fetishist and a foot fetishist.

And we have a masochist to go along with him.