Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Colors: Jason Jensen
As the Egg Fleet approaches New Mobotropolis, Nicole erects a forcefield-like shield around the entire city, protecting it from the bombardment that Snively, leading the fleet, begins dropping on it. With the shield protecting everyone, however, a slightly more immediate concern reveals itself - namely, the many criminals that have been teleported here along with the actual residents of Knothole, who see an opportunity to not only break free of the justice system, but take a few of the citizens with them.
Amazing speech on your part there, Mogul. Really, it's a wonder everyone didn't immediately fall at your feet. Sonic and Sally are impressed at Nicole's foresight, only to become concerned when her hologram begins flickering and she appears to show signs of pain in response to more shells hitting the city's shield. She tells them that she has to devote most of the city's power supply to keeping the shield up, and reassures Sally that she'll always be nearby even when they can't see her before disappearing. Sally and Elias address the crowd of rescued civilians, telling them that right now they can trust Nicole to keep them safe while they come up with a plan and that for now everyone should find their new homes. Sally stops Sonic, however, and orders him to go get medical attention before he does anything else, something he's predictably a bit grumpy about.
Okay, so this is where we address one of the most controversial things Ian ever included in the comic. It's controversial for good reason. We've already established that one of the major things Ian has been doing for the comic since taking over as head writer is bringing the world of the comics more in line with that of the games, and this includes the various characters and their attitudes. Vector is no longer as insufferable as he was under Kenders, Knuckles is one of Sonic's closest allies now rather than a distant rival, and so on, but this is where the age discrepancy between Charmy from the games and Charmy from the comics becomes a problem. If you'll recall, Charmy is six in the games but sixteen in the comics, and obviously a sixteen-year-old is going to act pretty different from a six-year-old. So how exactly does one take a fairly mature teenager, who's a prince of a lost kingdom and literally engaged to someone else his age, and make him act like a child? Well, I don't have any particularly good ideas myself, but Ian's highly controversial solution was to give him brain damage. From this point on, Charmy suffers from some substantial memory loss, and generally has a much more childlike personality than he once did. There's many problems with this, and others have gone into this topic much more in depth than I care to, but suffice it to say that while giving a character brain damage simply as part of their character arc isn't inherently a bad thing, and can even be a positive if handled right, giving a character brain damage purely as a plot device to make them act more like a child feels incredibly insensitive and insulting. From what I understand, this isn't totally Ian's fault; Sega was pressuring him to make these changes, and I suppose at the time this was all he could think of for the Charmy problem, but I know he has stated later on that he wishes he'd handled this particular issue better, so at least he's acknowledged how bad this whole thing seems. Furthermore, he does appear to treat Charmy as a character with as much respect as possible in future issues, so there's that at least.
Anyway, Saffron is relieved when Charmy happily confirms that he remembers who she is and hugs her, and Dr. Quack moves on from Charmy to take a look at Sonic. It doesn't take him long to confirm his suspicions that indeed, all the magical ring energy Sonic's been exposed to have given him a high resistance to injury as well as apparently an accelerated rate of healing, something which is quite fascinating and I wish would have been expanded upon in this universe's worldbuilding at some point. As Dr. Quack heads off to find his own family, we take a quick look at the Chaos Chamber on Angel Island, where Finitevus appears to be doing some kind of weird ritual with the Master Emerald, reciting Tikal's prayer. Scourge runs up and informs him that Dimitri has run - err, floated off, presumably to contact Knuckles and warn him of Finitevus' treachery. Finitevus, however, merely tells him that this was part of his plan all along, and he isn't concerned, as he'll bring back Enerjak one way or another. Sounds quite ominous indeed…
Hey man, someone needs to remind Antoine that bravery isn't a lack of fear, it's standing up to danger even when you are afraid. Sally becomes lost in thought for a moment, remembering all the times she led the Freedom Fighters into danger in the past, long before she was ever thrust into the role of acting ruler or forced into a disastrous arranged marriage. She suddenly stands up and reminds Bunnie of her old hairdressing ambitions, and asks her for one more favor before they begin their defense against Eggman's attack… Meanwhile up in the sky, Snively continues to try to break through New Mobotropolis' shield, only to become startled when a single, tiny aircraft begins firing onto his flagship. His robots prepare to return fire, but he suddenly orders them to stand down with a look of shock, and contacts the plane… having recognized it as the plane that Hope built. Hope yells at him through the comm when he opens a channel, furious that she took his advice and went to Station Square, but when she tried to return to Knothole, which she still considered home, it was in ruins. She blames him for all of it, too ashamed to show her face to the Mobians again after leaving, and begins to sob.
I absolutely love the way that these comics continue to humanize Snively more and more. I feel so bad for Hope here, especially knowing that none of the Mobians would blame her for what happened, but as for Snively, it's clear that despite his nature, he does value family, and does care about Hope. He's gone from being the cowardly, sniveling, silly minion of the evil Dr. Robotnik to an actual human with flaws, feelings, and attachments. From inside the city shield, Tails watches the bombardment continue with his parents and Merlin, and Amadeus expresses that though the destruction of Knothole was a tragedy, all in all this may actually be a good thing for the populace, as he believes that such a major event will prepare them for "the shift in thinking" that he plans for them. Merlin, however, warns him not to push ahead with any reforms he has in mind too soon, as the monarchy will also be very tense from all this chaos. Rosemary expresses her belief in her husband, and Tails excitedly says he'll support his father no matter what, but the sentiment is interrupted by Eggman's furious screaming from outside the city walls, banging on the shield with his battle suit and yelling for the Freedom Fighters to come out and face him, infuriated that his perfect victory has been stolen from him. Sonic cheerfully interrupts his tantrum, suddenly standing outside the shield, and Eggman is initially pleased, mocking Sonic for not learning from his initial defeat mere hours ago. However, it turns out that Sonic has learned, and with the knowledge that the battle suit was created to counter Sonic and Sonic alone, he and Sally have come up with the perfect plan while Eggman wasn't looking.
The entire Freedom Fighter and Chaotix force descends on Eggman's battle suit, and they're all able to locate weaknesses that Eggman hadn't anticipated in its construction. They tear it apart piece by piece while Sonic gleefully reminds his nemesis that there are more heroes on this planet than just himself, and that anything he can't handle on his own, the others definitely can. In the end, Eggman is left with barely half a shell of his precious armor, furious and humiliated, which leads into perhaps one of my favorite pages of this entire era - perhaps even the entire comic.
Eggman, still unwilling to let victory slip away despite his situation, orders his fleet to fire directly on their location, meaning either he was somehow unaware that this would kill him too, or he was aware, and was more concerned with killing his foes than surviving. Honestly, my bet is on the latter - it seems like something he'd do if angry enough and feeling sufficiently cornered. However, he's forgotten that Nicole has full control over the nanites in the city, and since everything in the city is made of nanites, she's able to stretch the city's wall out to create a wall between everyone out on the field and the bombardment from the Egg Fleet. She projects her form to Eggman and urges him to reconsider his decision, as frankly, Sally is showing him more mercy than he deserves by a long shot. And honestly, she's right - it would be a much better decision to either kill him right there, or, if they're feeling too honorable and whatnot, at least arrest him and shove him in a cell next to Mammoth Mogul…
Well hello there, old haircut! I will say, I did enjoy Sally's long hair while she had it - I thought it looked good on her. But hey, cutting one's hair as a show of maturation is a common fictional trope, and in a way, it's nice to go back to seeing Sally rocking her old look. I will actually note here that while I've mentioned before that Tracy's pencils have standardized the design of a lot of characters, I actually don't care much for his redesign of Sally as a whole. While I appreciate her proportions becoming more like those of every other Mobian - the human body that a lot of other artists gave her looked kind of weird, to be honest - her facial features have actually been significantly altered by his style. She always had a distinctive slanted-back eye shape and a more gentle slope to her nose, but by making her eye shape closer to than of characters like Bunnie and Tails, I feel she's lost some of her unique visual charm. That isn't to say that I think Sally is lesser as a character for this change - she's still one of my top favorites in the series - nor that I disapprove of Tracy's art style as a whole. And in the end, her hairstyle change here marks the beginning of a new era - one where she begins to act once more like her old self and once again joins the others on missions just like old times. She's worked through a lot of the trauma and self-doubt that she's been plagued with ever since Sonic's return to Mobius, and now we can look forward to new adventures with her, in a new location. I mean that "new era" thing literally, by the way. Congratulations, we've reached the end of the comic's fifth era - many of the eras beyond this one are significantly shorter than the ones we've seen previously, but that also means we'll be moving through distinctive arcs a little more quickly, and furthermore, the next era holds some pretty exciting new surprises! Shall we now - how do they say - do it to it?
