#stc issue 130

[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!

[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]

To start with, I just want to say that, even though this is one long story in the same issue, because it’s broken down into three parts, I’ll be making three separate posts for it, as well as anything like Speedlines or Graphics Zone that’s posted in-between, just like I did for issue 100. This story is also brought to us by both Kitching & Springer, with both of them being credited for part 1

Anyway, on with the villain showreel!

We get a short fight scene between Sonic & Metallix, before Sonic hurts Robotnik’s ego enough that he quickly moves onto other villains and Metallix is just sort of around in the background. Sorry, Metal Sonic fans!

As with a lot of the villains in this issue, this is actually Megatox’s last appearance and that hanging plot-thread about how he could escape containment and come back is never addressed. Megatox might not be the most memorable StC villain, but his poison affected Sonic each time he appeared, so I can kind of see why Robotnik would bring him back

I actually don’t remember either of these two, even though I must’ve covered their appearance on this blog sometime in the last couple of years lol

I’m with Sonic - I also hoped I’d never see Brutus again

Yes, Robotnik really is this cruel

So, Robotnik’s brought back Tails just to turn him against Sonic?

Nah, it’s Metamorphia. Like Megatox and Brutus, she appears in this issue for one last hurrah

If nothing else, I’m glad to see Brutus get destroyed again

Say buh-bye to the villain gallery!

But Robotnik’s far from finished yet, so we’ll see where he sends Sonic next in part 2

[samobservessonic]

The final part of this story has only Kitching on the writing credits. It hasn’t taken long for Robotnik to appear to rub the loss of another ally in Sonic’s face

But Sonic knows that Knuckles is his best shot for having someone in his corner to fight back against Robotnik who knows a lot more than most about the Chaos Emeralds, so he once again manages to appeal to Robotnik’s ego to give himself a fighting chance

Knuckles is back in the room! Despite their usual bickering, he instantly seems to grasp the gravity of the situation and follow Sonic when Robotnik gives them a head start

Yep, Sonic had a plan all along

But it’s not the plan that Robotnik assumes he had

Get Grey Emerald’d, loser!

I can’t remember if they’ve brought this up before or not, but in StC, the Grey Emerald has particular importance over the others as being the Control Emerald. It’s also why, even now with Sonic Frontiers directly referring to it as the White Emerald, I struggle to think of it as anything other than the Grey Emerald - that’s part of me ye olde Sonic heritage from StC, after all

Time to undo all the damage that Robotnik’s done and return the world back to normal

Once again, Robotnik vanishes from the comic. But just like before, we’ll definitely be seeing him back again further down the line But for now, they’ve done a Sonic 06 before Sonic 06 did. No one remembers what’s happened. Well, it’s not exactly like Sonic 06, since Sonic & Knuckles still remember. Sonic’s a bit glum that no one will know about one of his greatest victories. But Knuckles knows, and doesn’t that just make it a special thing between them~? (It's nice of Knuckles to come all the way down to Emerald Hill with Sonic as well, just sayin')

And so, that’s the end of this arc! I like it a lot! It was unfortunately a slow and boring start with the Drakon Empire stuff (I do wonder if that’s why I don’t hear this arc talked about that often?), but the payoff with god-power Robotnik was definitely worth it. We got lots of fun visuals, a brand new angsty AU world for a moment and also a last hurrah for some villains who’d otherwise never appear again. My only wish is that it could’ve been faster getting to the good stuff, but otherwise this is a great arc that I remember fondly

[samobservessonic]

Taking a break between parts for Speedlines and we get a bit of real world info about Megadroid. Nothing that we can’t just see on a wiki entry these days (or maybe not? Looks like there isn’t a page for Megadroid on the main Sonic wiki. Gasp!), but it’s still nice to see this stuff in the comic

[samobservessonic]

Issue 130 was also StC’s fifth birthday, so to celebrate we get a mega-long story to finish the current main arc and also this cover from Dermot Power! Now, Power has done a few covers for StC (I think this is the last one?), but didn’t contribute to interiors. He worked in the British comic industry for a while before making the jump to being a concept artist in film. He’s worked on a lot of big films that you’ve probably seen or heard of. It’s cool that we got him for Sonic a few times!

Also, you might remember that back in issue 100, I said that StC didn’t do anymore “whole issue is one long story” kind of stories after that. Well, I was wrong about that… kind of! The Sonic story in this issue is one long story broken into three parts, but there’s also a Decap Attack story, so technical the whole issue isn’t one long Sonic story (Yes, I know I was wrong, but let me have this lol)