112. Sonic the Hedgehog #66
A Friend in Deed
Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Ken Penders
Rings! Rings everywhere! Apparently, in his isolation, Nate Morgan has just been forging tons of rings and keeping them in his little secret vault in the castle here. Sonic innocently reaches out to grab one, and Eddy immediately stomps in front of him and growls aggressively.
In response, Eddy grunts some caveman speak about "Nate friend, Nate stay," and when Nate agrees, Sonic angrily challenges the old scientist on how he was once a hero, and how he could be one again but refuses by hiding out here. Nate insists that being a hero never works, but their conversation is interrupted by the rock around the ring vault melting into a familiar form.
Eddy tries to carry Nate away as the cave starts to collapse, but Nate can't bring himself to let Sonic and Tails be trapped there to face Naugus alone. For a second he's worried about the lack of movement under the pile of rock, but suddenly it explodes to reveal… well, a strange sight indeed, but at this point in the comic, perhaps not an unexpected one.
This comic really loves giving its main characters various unique powered-up forms. This time we have Ultra-Sonic and Hyper-Tails, the former of whom seems to have gained similar elemental powers to Naugus, and the latter of whom has an army of, uh, small birds to attack his foe. Really seems like Tails got a little shafted in the superpowers department here, but no matter!
I'm actually not at all a fan of how this fight plays out, as for whatever reason, instead of writing dialogue and letting the action in the panels speak for itself, Karl has instead chosen to describe everything, and I mean everything, in those yellow aside-textboxes, as if he's suddenly writing a present-tense novel with some pictures added. This has occasionally been used for a page or two in the past to decent effect, as it can give the impression of a film where the motion of the camera and the sounds one would otherwise hear are replaced with these descriptions to give a sense of what we're seeing and feeling, but this one goes on and on without any real dialogue. Naugus begins to use his powers to open a portal to the Zone of Silence, allowing him to gain more energy from the zone to fight Ultra-Sonic and Hyper-Tails, whilst Nate looks on in increasing horror, with Eddy still trying to insist he shouldn't interfere because "Nate friend, Nate stay." Despite their best efforts, Ultra-Sonic and Hyper-Tails run out of energy before they can defeat Naugus, who then regales them with a random tale of how he met a giant - and I mean giant - panda called Feist within the zone. I don't even know why this was included as it's not expanded upon at all in this issue, but whatever, it becomes important later.
As Sonic and Tails collapse, Naugus turns his attention onto Nate, who flips a golden part of his eyepiece down over his left eye. Turns out, the eyepiece contained a single golden ring in reserve this whole time, and Nate makes a single wish, "true of heart," for Naugus to disappear and the Zone of Silence portal to close, which apparently just… works without any downsides. Man, why didn't you do that before your home got busted up by a crazy wizard? Sonic and Tails begin to wake up, but just then the cave begins to collapse in earnest, forcing them to look for a route out. Eddy holds the roof up while Sonic quickly tunnels a way to the surface, and Tails and Nate follow him out…
And then the cave collapses.
We may not have known Eddy for more than a couple issues, but ouch, bro. Nate is left sitting in the snow next to Sonic and Tails, having lost his closest friend after all these years. Poor guy has lost enough, it's time to let him have some good things…
And Then There Was One (Or the Until Now Untold Origin of Ixis Naugus!)
Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo
Didja ever wonder where Ixis Naugus came from? Well wonder no longer, as this bizarre-ass story is here to clear things up for ya! For starters, Ixis isn't actually his first name, but a title. You see, once upon a time there were three Ixis wizards - Agunus the Rhino, Nusgau the Bat, and Suguna the Lobster. You see what they did there? Huh, huh? All of their names are just anagrams of Naugus! How clever! Many decades ago, the three of them were conducting some sort of ritual to find out what had caused the previous Day of Fury on the planet to occur, which wiped out all historical records and most of the world's population. However, they were unable to complete the ritual, and decided that the only way to find out and gain more power was to use each of their unique abilities to reach the sun and learn the secrets of fire.
However, as you might expect, these three sorcerers were quite treacherous, and each planned to betray the other to get to the sun first and take all the power for themselves. Despite this sounding like some sort of bizarre creation myth, they were very serious in their plans to somehow fall directly into the sun for its mystical fire powers, even though you'd think they could learn how fire works by, I dunno, striking a match or something. They began to race to reach the sun, each trying to sabotage the other, but eventually they all flew into the air neck and neck, fighting each other until the last moment, all still trying to reach the sun first.
Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Acorn, a young Prince Maximillian excitedly points out a shooting star that seems to be falling from the sky. The next morning, the royal family is astonished to answer a knock at their door only to see, you guessed it, Ixis Naugus, having become the fused form of the three sorcerers, offering his services as a wizard to the kingdom. And thus, he became a member of the royal court despite his obviously evil demeanor, leading to all the stuff we've been seeing with him lately. Fun times!
