It hasn’t been that long since my last review has it? *looks back* Oh!
Issue 18
Story 1: Wedding Bells Blues
We open with a quick bit of exposition, and a large full page panel, that Sonic and Sally are getting married, they’re converting an old barn for said wedding, and that as so often before Antione is going to be, as he might put it, “Ze Butt Money!”
This activity is spotted by Motobug, who rushes of disbelieving to report to Robotnik. Who is equally sceptical. Uh… why? Just a couple of issues ago in the perfect virtual reality the two were about to marry and Robotnik was watching. Or do you take drugs or something to erase your defeats from your mind Robotnik? Would explain some of your other decisions.
Even reading the headline in the newspaper doesn’t convince Robotnik, so he sends in Bat Brain, who is German because…. Because……
So he sends in Bat Brain to spy on the Freedom Fighters, though, for someone with ‘Brain’ in his name, he really doesn’t get that spying on someone with a light shining behind you so your easy to spot is a pretty dumb thing to do. Surprise-surprise, he’s spotted and Sonic gets rid of him by throwing a book through the window he’s looking through. Though… barns don’t tend to have glass windows, and the one Bat Brain is looking through is actually a hatch, not a window.
But now with proof, Robotnik summons all his robots, speeches at them for a bit, then sends them out to smash said wedding. Though his bots seem to mostly walk into each other. Guess he STILL hasn’t fixed those pathfinding bugs!
We pop back to the wedding, where we see it underway, then the bots smash in. The priest gives a stern objection because of the holy sanctuary with centuries of tradition. Er…. It’s a barn… at most it’s been holy for all of ten minutes. But Sonic saves the priest and then everyone else from the bots, though Sally gets to take out Robotnik by dropping a curtain on him.
Robotnik wonders why everyone is cheering at a wedding. Er…. Maybe because Sonic just saved everyone? But no, turns out the whole thing was actually a theatre play, not an actual wedding. Robotnik takes it… like it’s a defeat worse than his robots being trashed. Odd. Sonic tries to rub it in his face by showing how it was reported in the newspaper. Two problems here. First, how did Sonic know Robotnik had read it in a newspaper. And Second, Sonic is holding up a different newspaper.
The whole thing is meant to be a ‘hah, gotya’ to the readers, except most of the time it cheats in order to do this. Now, in most of the wide shots in the barn you can see how the layout is meant to be a theatre in the background. Except for the main shot of the wedding, where the stage mysteriously disappears! The newspaper is another example. If it was meant to be the same one, then the layout had been changed simply to hide the fact.
So we reach the end with Antione reading a review of the play and Rotor… uh…. Rotor? Are you narcoleptic or something? That’s two issues in a row you’ve fallen asleep standing up for one panel. Anyway, Sally makes a quick reference she’d like to marry Sonic for really, and we’re done.
The story is another mood whiplash after the last issue, moving right back into the slapstick area. It also doesn’t gel well with the events of previous stories. The whole point of the story seems to be to fool the reader into thinking this is actually happening, but the artwork is deliberately erroronious in points in order to achieve this.
Story 2: In the Still of the Night
And mood whiplash again as we go right back to a serious story. And, for the first time in the comics, a character death. Admittedly, it’s a new introduced character in this story, but that doesn’t make the impact any less on Sally.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We start with Rotor examining the orb from last issue, suspecting the orb itself is actually a force field, when Sally gets some bad news. She goes to see her dying mentor Julalya, and we get more of her backstory. Sally certainly is getting much fleshed out than most character, especially so at this early stage. After a final test for Sally, Julalya passes on, leaving an upset Sally to ponder under the night sky, with Sonic joining her for comfort.
The final text box tells us ‘This is not an end, but a beginning’. And in many ways it’s right. As with last issue, this is the beginning of the new direction the comics will start to take. Though as I said last time, it will take a while for the changes to fully manifest in the main comic. But, once you’ve killed off a character, you’re certainly left ‘children’s funny comic’ behind.
Overall
For those wanting only to read the serious comics, ignore the first story and read the second. The first isn’t anything special, and a little more nonsensical than normal.
English