#mr. fry

[fyeahsonicthehedgehog]

[samobservessonic]

Let’s see us out with some birthday themed fanart for StC’s fifth birthday! I like that some of these feature the StC characters themselves, especially the Tekno fanart. The style of Aaron Foster’s art on the second page is really fun!

[paulpingminho]

[samobservessonic]

Let us move swiftly on to the final part of the best story in the issue, in which Pyjamas has learned the truth about their new friend the hard way

We get a lot happening very quickly. Super Sonic’s memories have been unlocked and he remembers everything about who he is, but before we can see how he reacts to that, Ebony apologises to Pyjamas for not believing her and asks Super Sonic the truth about himself. But before he can answer…

…Biohazard answers the question for him

Ebony and Pyjamas looking at each other like, “Is that a rhetorical question, or…?”

We then get the reveal of the next major plot point: When Pyjamas unlocked his memories, Super Sonic’s powers returned to him. However, Super Sonic has the self-awareness to know that if he uses his powers, he could be overcome with the controllable urge to destroy once again. So he chooses not to use his powers

Super Sonic chooses to be good

I knew I remembered that cop guy appeared again at some point! Here he is, solving the trio’s problem without realising that’s what he’s doing

We then get a really nice moment between Super Sonic & Pyjamas where she apologises for not trusting him earlier and he once again vows that he won’t use his powers, no matter what the danger

All’s well that ends well! Thus, the best trio in StC has now been formed, yahoo!

The sad part is that we don’t actually get that many more stories with them after this one, which I’m sure wasn’t due to a lack of fans asking for them. They were always characters I wanted to see each time I picked up an issue and they’ve remained some of the most popular from StC to this day. It always felt like a missed opportunity to me not to give them more. Then again, I guess there’s that one quote from that Disco Elysium interview that was like “something something desire is strongest when it’s not wholly satisfied something something”. All the same, I just… wanted more of them

BUT we do have some of them in future. Which is something I’m certainly looking forward to as I progress through the series for this blog

[samobservessonic]

Onwards to the Special Zone! With part 2 being credited only to Stringer on the writing front

Yeah, there’s no Chaotix in this world. I find it interesting that Robotnik bothered to make AU versions of all the various heroes. I wonder if he came up with their premises on his own or if he just thought “make a world where Sonic never existed” and the rest of the details sorted themselves out. Then again, Sonic didn’t have anything to do with the forming of the Chaotix, so it can’t have been that

Lord Sidewinder and his gang are also here making their last appearances in the comic. I think that finishes off the list of villains who appear for the final time in this issue?

But more importantly to Sonic, Robotnik’s taken away his speed now, too

Skipping ahead of Biohazard & Mr. Fry fighting Sonic, it turns out that, even though Robotnik is all-powerful, he hasn’t rewritten the part of Lord Sidewinder that would backstab him to take power for himself

I mean, this isn’t the real versions of these characters anyway, but it’s pretty brutal that their last appearance is them being turned to stone

Sonic successfully baits Robotnik in two ways here: First, into giving him his skills back and second, into sending him to Knuckles

Without Sonic around, Knuckles never realised that Robotnik was duping him. This one’s so obvious that it doesn’t need to be explained. But don’t count this as Sonic having made a mistake just yet, as we’ll see in the next part

[samobservessonic]

I have a rule of only posting one issue to ‘Sam Observes Sonic’ per day, but I’m gonna be honest with you folks - I was so excited for the next part of this story that I started reading this issue immediately after finishing the last one

The Chaotix have entered the fray, with Vector being presented as the leader again, because StC got that right. We also get the confirmation that the Chaotix and Lord Sidewinder are familiar with each other and their run-ins have probably not been on the best of terms

I know I said I like Lightmare because she’s the girl one, but I also like her because her powers are cool

But we’re not about to forget about the main event here, not when Super Sonic doesn’t even need to use his own super speed to fight and Sonic’s just barely managing to out-run the guy. Sonic has a plan this time because, as we’ve seen before, the only way to beat Super Sonic is to out-smart him, since he can’t be overpowered

We then get a glorious double-page spread, because the comic really wasn’t afraid of letting Elson just go ham with these massive images for the fight scenes. This is why I wish there was a way to show all of you these comics in person, because they really are huge and deserve to be seen in their full magnificence. I sincerely hope that this page’s original art is framed on someone’s wall somewhere, because it deserves to be appreciated forever

Sonic forces Super Sonic into the Omni-Viewer and then tries to escape before he does, but the plan doesn’t work out as he expects

Omni doesn’t have time to explain what’s going on, but instead of acting out Sonic’s plan he’s frozen Super Sonic in time to keep him from hurting anyone else. It’s a big sacrifice and we’ll be feeling the effects of it for a while

Also, those other villains escaped

Vector explains this on the next page, once they get Omni and Super Sonic back to their base. They don’t say it this issue, but this also means that Sonic’s trapped in the Special Zone now, since Omni was his way home

A week later we get this ominous warning that Super Sonic might not be as frozen as it seems, as Charmy notices that more of his hand has started to slip through the Omni-Viewer. But since Charmy expects that Vector will yell at him, he doesn’t bother telling him about it and assumes it probably isn’t important. There’s a lesson to be learned here, though I’m not sure the Chaotix will learn it

[samobservessonic]

But let’s move onto what’s actually the main event in this issue, if we’re all being honest. Biohazard has been sent from the Special Zone to try to track down Super Sonic and it seems he has a bit better idea of who Super Sonic is than Super Sonic himself does right now

I love Ebony and she’s evidently really stressed right now for good reason, but I do think she could stand to be nicer to Pyjamas at times. Then again, I kind of like that? It gives their dynamic a bit more flavour than “and they’re just great friends with no friction at all”

Pyjamas is right about that. Also, why isn’t the whole fandom calling Super Sonic “Yellow Boy”? That’s such an easy nickname

I love the note that the reason Ebony’s magic isn’t working on Biohazard is because he’s not the brightest. And it looks like Super Sonic is getting the first hint of his memories coming back, too

Super Sonic’s amused smile here is so cute - I love it when he shows these little hints of his own personality through this all

We all have good enough comedic timing to know where this is going

I’m not sure this would’ve worked, even on the real Super Sonic

That “‘Bye!” always makes me laugh

I remember how exciting this moment was at the time - Super Sonic was potentially going to get his memory back at last!

Time’s run out for them, so it’s with great reluctance that I say we’ll need to wait until the next issue to find out what happens next

[samobservessonic]

StC Post-Mortems: Lord Sidewinder

The last character I’ll be covering from the batch of final villain appearances in issue 130 is Lord Sidewinder - a prominent enemy of the Chaotix in StC, although perhaps not a popular one, given that he only got one vote on the poll and that was mine. But I still think there’s plenty to talk about with him, so let’s look at the villain with the hyperfixation on Super Sonic

How it started

It’s been a while since we’ve covered a character who has some concept art to go along with them, but Sidewinder was another collab character, being created by Kitching and designed by Elson. On this concept art we get a few neat details about the character that aren’t directly referenced in the comic, such as him being virtually blind and having a telepathic connection with his snakes, as well as being able to exert influence over people who get close to him. While none of this seems to come up in the comic itself, Sidewinder is often pictured with snakes, so I choose to believe that it’s all canon

As for within the comic itself, Lord Sidewinder’s introduction comes when he was bailing Sonic out of jail while Sonic was stuck in the Special Zone. Which doesn’t sound like a villainous act, but Sidewinder had his own purposes. From his introduction, we learn that Sidewinder has some history with the police, but they’ve been unable to pin the small matter of a nuclear bomb on him in the past, so Sidewinder has been allowed to go free and use his vast wealth to help Sonic

Sidewinder doesn’t work alone and with him comes a team of characters who were designed first by Elson and then developed into characters by Kitching. We’ve got Lightmare, Proctor Speckle (also known as Mr. Fry) and Bio-Hazard. But it was hard for these guys to initially get a lot of spotlight when they were easily outshined by the thing that Sidewinder is the most invested in:

You know who this is Sidewinder’s first foolish plan had been to get Super Sonic on side to rule the Planet Meridian with him. But when that didn’t work out, Sidewinder didn’t let a little thing like his house being blown up stop him from trying to get Super Sonic’s power for himself

How it went

After that, the vast majority of Sidewinder’s appearances were concerned with trying to get Super Sonic back. A matter which he both didn’t succeed in and that even his own team had doubts about being a good idea

Even Lightmare, Sidewinder’s own daughter, went to the Chaotix behind his back to appeal to them to stop this madness. Sometimes your parents just get wrapped up in their evil hobbies enough that you have to take a stand And this was somewhat successful. Super Sonic ended up being sent to Mobius and losing his memories for part of the main plot, putting him out of Sidewinder’s reach. Also, somewhere amidst all this going on, Mr. Fry had his own adventure away from the rest of the team with Captain Plunder, but it sadly wasn’t very interesting

How it ended

We’re led to believe that Sidewinder and his team were arrested during the events of issue 100, but they managed a jailbreak and then were straight back to trying to catch Super Sonic in his weakened state. Sidewinder was able to send Bio-Hazard over to Mobius to try to grab Super Sonic and teleport back with him. But he hadn’t counted on Super Sonic having made two powerful friends who’d protect him from them, nor that Super Sonic himself would want to denounce his previously evil ways

In the end, Sidewinder and his gang were found and arrested once more. Despite vowing to gain Super Sonic’s power one day, Sidewinder as we know him didn’t appear again after this

Although he was one of the villains summoned by Robotnik in issue 130. Interestingly, while even villains like Brutus and Metamorphia who’d betrayed Robotnik in the past became loyal to him in Robotnik’s perfect world, Sidewinder didn’t and was secretly planning on betraying Robotnik to gain power himself. Not that this lasted, since Robotnik immediately heard him and turned him and his team to stone After reality returned to normal, we can assume that Team Sidewinder were sent back to prison, where Sidewinder would spend the rest of his days making failed plans to obtain the power of Super Sonic For some reason, Mr. Fry would make one final appearance separate from the rest of the gang in issue 150. But I haven’t gotten to that on the blog yet, so I’m not going to be talking about it here

Were there any unused future plans from the StC writers?

Doesn’t seem to be! Lord Sidewinder was tied to two aspects of the comic: Super Sonic and the Chaotix. So his appearances seemed to largely depend on whether one or the other needed opposition in their stories. Given how things ended for Super Sonic, I think that if we were going to see Sidewinder again, it’d more likely be on the Chaotix side of things. Though they were hardly lacking in villain fodder in the Special Zone, even without Sidewinder

What would I personally have liked to see next for him if StC continued?

Naturally, I’d love to see Sidewinder come back and I think there was still a lot you could do with him. While part of me wishes that Sonic and Super Sonic didn’t fuse again at the end of the series (or that there was… some other alternate where he could’ve stayed with Ebony & Pyjamas, but I’m not getting into that here), taking the ending of the series as it comes, there’s still grounds for Sidewinder to come back and try to obtain the power of Super Sonic

But let’s step him away from Sonic for a moment. I do sometimes wonder why Sidewinder never just cut out the middleman and went for the Chaos Emeralds. Maybe he just didn’t know about them? But while he seemed fixated on Super Sonic, that he wanted to take Robotnik’s power in issue 130 does show that Sidewinder wasn’t picky on the god-power front. He just wanted it for himself. And Sonic isn’t the only character in the series who has a Super form. My thoughts on this are that while Shadow already has a lot going on without needing to throw at him Sidewinder as yet another villain, Super Silver and/or Burning Blaze might be an interesting direction to send Sidewinder in. Sure, they’ve both got a lot going on as well, but I could easily see Sidewinder duping Silver into going after Sonic while trying to take his power, be that the power of Super Sonic or Super Silver. And with Blaze, well, I’d just like to see Blaze used more. Even if she wouldn’t be duped by Sidewinder, it’d just be cool to give her another villain to fight

On the Chaotix side of things, I’d just like more of the same, honestly. Have Sidewinder turn up as a semi-frequent villain for them. I’d also like to see the sub-plot with Lightmare revisited, since I felt it was a bit of a shame they did the reveal about her being Sidewinder’s daughter and then didn’t go anywhere with it. Idk I think I’d like to see a Lightmare & Espio friendship begrudgingly start to form over time, since it was Espio that she talked to specifically

ALSO, I’ll probably have more to say about this in the Chaotix post-mortems, but there’s the matter of what they might’ve done with Mighty if StC had gotten to Heroes. Would they have just quietly kept Mighty as part of the team like preboot Archie did or come up with a reason why he left? One possible reason could be Sidewinder’s unexplored ability to potentially control people near him - maybe he managed to get hold of Mighty and there could be a subplot about the rest of the Chaotix trying to rescue Mighty, but Mighty being too powerful to fight without hurting him?

What if he was in other Sonic media?

I don’t have any in-depth examples this time around, but I do think that the Chaotix would benefit from having a villain that’s just for them to deal with in other media outside of StC. When Clutch first appeared in IDW, I wondered if they might be going for that angle with him, but then he became more of a general villain

It doesn’t have to be Sidewinder and honestly, taking away Fleetway Super Sonic also takes away a lot of the focus of Sidewinder’s character beyond “another guy who just wants god power for himself”, but I like Sidewinder and maybe if they leaned into more of the stuff from his concept art about his psychic connection to snakes and being able to exert his influence over those close to him they could get some interesting stories out of him