SonicQuest Miniseries
  
[Dec 1996-Feb 1997]
Review by Dan Drazen

     Did I miss something in the three months I've been waiting to see this issue?  I've never heard the term "renegade" applied to Geoffrey St. John before.  "Useless bit player" is more applicable, especially considering his part in "The Dream Zone" (#43).  Anyway, the aforementioned renegade/UBP gets a rude reception from the brown-eyed blue blur because Geoff was trying to sneak into Knothole before Princess Sally could show up with his visitor's pass.  Inside one of the huts King Acorn is in a bad state since his rescue from the Zone/Void/Whatever.  There follows a one-page recap of quite a few story lines, some of them best forgotten even by Ken Penders' admission, from "The Fall of Robotropolis", through "Rage Against The Machine/Mecha Madness/Court Martial" and ending with "And One Shall Save Him".  And as Freddy himself admitted, THIS story won't have an impact on anything to come.  So why are we here?  Who knows?  Let's just get this over with.
     Geoffrey goes and stands at the front door.  THAT'S HIS ENTIRE CONTRIBUTION TO THE WHOLE DANG MINISERIES!  He does less  here than he did in "The Dream Zone".  He doesn't even appear in the reaction shot at the end of SonicQuest #3 when the Death Egg is destroyed -- like I'm spoiling it for anyone when I tell you THAT!
     And a little fox shall lead them: Tails is apparently the only one in Knothole with enough of a grasp of the obvious to note the resemblance between the King's crystalline state and the Chaos Emeralds.  This is such a revelation that the news momentarily straightens out Bunnie's perpetually lopped ear.  Sonic tries exposing the King to that Billionth Ring he got in "Ring of Truth" (#35) with less than desirable results.  Still, Rotor seems to think that more of the same should help -- only this time, check the freshness date.
     Can we pause here and talk about Manny Galan's artwork?  Maybe we'd better not, in case there are any small children around.  Page 8 is a mess!  The top panel looks like the inside of a funhouse: the perspective is shot, the characters are off-model, and the full-figure Sally at the bottom of the page looks like it was inked by someone other than the person who inked the Sally at the top of the page.  After yet more plot synopses from previous stories, the Freedom Fighters get their orders: Bunnie and Antoine go on vacation and don't reappear in the story, Sally and Rotor stay behind for an odd interlude in SQ#2, and that leaves Sonic and Tails to carry the story.
     As for the villain of this melodrama, despite a Patrick Stewart quotation, the only thing Robotnik has in common with Jean-Luc Picard is the same hairline.  He leaves an off-model Snively behind while he goes off to take care of business.  For his part, Snively immediately starts slacking off -- apparently taking his lead from Geoffrey St. John.
     Sonic and Tails arrive at the ring grotto featured in the Super Sonic v. Hyper Knuckles special, the one that was supposedly imploded when Sonic and Knuckles did a serious head butt.  Only now the aforementioned grotto is covered by a metal dome.  For no logical reason, Sonic thinks that Carl Condor who lives in the mountains to the west may know something about this development.  He leaves Tails and runs off to check in with Carl.
     The last time we were here, we were treated to the sight of Princess Sally on all fours in what for animals can only be described as a sexually receptive position (though seen from a "safe" angle) delivering that deathless line to Sonic and Knuckles: "Don't be shy, boys!  Take a look down here!"  So now  Tails can only watch in horror as the mound-like dome parts in two and a giant tube drops down from the sky and inserts itself suggestively into the grotto.  The entire sequence has all the subtlety and Freudian symbolism of a train entering a tunnel.  Too bad Sonic and Sally will never marry: this grotto would be the perfect place for them to spend their honeymoon.
     OK, let's move on before this gets any nastier.  Tails watches as the tube sucks up rings from the grotto.  He tries to make a break for it, but due to some premature withdrawal by the tube he gets sucked up along with some of the surrounding landscape.  Sonic, meanwhile, finds nothing but nothing in the western landscape.    As for Carl, he shows up as a roboticized condorbot.  Carl apparently makes short work of Sonic and begins bearing him aloft to the Death Egg, which looks like an egg-shaped Death Star with two parabolic dishes (a double yolker?).  Robotnik, however, is cheesed off that the tube sucked up so much of the Mobian landscape that the ship is carrying too much weight.  He punches out the SWATbot responsible and sends the bot down the garbage chute (remember that bot -- he'll figure in the plot later).  Robotnik then heads for the control room, with the standard equipment of fuzzy dice and 8-ball stick shift.  I'm sure that if Galan could have figured out a way to include a bare foot accelerator pedal and Yosemite Sam "Back Off!" mud flaps he would have.  And the camera pulls away to reveal the Death Egg in all its cliched glory.  Oh, I'm so scared.
     Back up one page for the Fan Art section.  Nice drawing by Tara Holcraft of Princess Sally in a full-length gown.  I wonder how Tara is at drawing shrouds?
     Letter Quest: So how come there AREN'T any letters?  There ARE, however, covers for SonicQuest #2 and #3, Sonic Live (they say " #1" but considering the reception it got I think it's safe to say "#only"), and Sonics #43 and 44.  Freddy warns us to "expect the unexpected".  Fred, you don't know the half of it!
     Find Your Name: Holly-Beth "Vixie" Kraft -- that the same "Vixie" who's on the Sonic  list?
     [Note: Before proceeding with the plot synopsis, we will now turn this review over to two representatives of the Canadian printing industry]:
     "Good day, I'm Bob McKenzie.  This is my brother, Doug."
     "How's it goin', eh?"
     "And we're here to talk aboot what happened when the Death Egg Saga #2 got printed, eh?"
     "Yah, what happened dere?  How come Sonic's like all purple, eh?"
     "OK, like, what happened was what's called oversaturation."
     "That's when you've had too many brews, eh?"
     "Take off, ya hoser!"
     "I took a look at page 1 and I thought *I* was oversaturated."
     "We're not talkin' aboot you, we're talkin' aboot the printing, eh?"
     "So how come it looks so bad, eh?"
     "OK, here's the deal.  It's kinda like when you've bean screwin' aroond with the tint control on the TV, eh?  And you pushed the red too far."
     "It was dat cheap universal remote ya got.  The buttons stick, eh?"
     "They stick because you keep spilling your Molson's on the remote, eh?"
[Sounds of a scuffle]
     We apologize to any Canadians reading this review for the preceding explanation of why the colors on certain pages of #2 (which was printed in The Great White North) got jazzed.  Basically, in the 4-color printing process used to print the comic, the red value was twice what it should have been.  Because of a tight schedule, the error wasn't found until too late and it shipped in that condition.  So anyway...
     Sonic Quest #2.  "Ordering!  One poached Death Egg with a plot rehash!"
     Is it me, or has Manny Galan's artwork improved dramatically since the first installment?  Must be taking Spaziante lessons.  Robotnik, unaware that Snively has been busy living off the
expense account instead of rebuilding "my beloved megaopolis" [the word is "megalopolis", gang, but what's one more mistake in this issue?], checks in to report that having used the power rings to build the Death Egg's defenses, he needs a Chaos Emerald to adequately power the contraption.  He also needs to lose some dead weight in order to gain proper altitude; instead of switching to lo-cal soda, he decides to dump the debris from the grotto that got sucked up.  However, part of that debris is tawny-colored and has two tails.  Tails climbs into the disabled SWATbot that Robotnik punched out in the previous issue to work it from the inside, dumps the debris (keep an eye on that stuff -- it'll be important to the plot) and reports to Robotnik.
     As for Sonic, the off-blue blur is still being borne aloft by the Condorbot, which turns out to be as talkative as a parrot.  Thanks to some exposition between Botnik and the bot, Sonic gets caught up on the plot and the hedgehog stops playing possum.  He tries fighting the Condorbot but is clearly at a disadvantage until the purged debris drops on top of the bot from above (Told ya to watch for that stuff).  Using a maneuver I still haven't gotten the hang of (I'll admit it -- I've never gotten to the end of Stage Two of the Jungle Sequence of Sonic 1 for Game Gear), Sonic manages to get himself inside the Egg.  Unfortunately, his communicator can't pull in anything from inside there; I've owned radios like that myself.
     Strange Interlude: we cut to Knothole when Sally learns from Nicole that the King's condition is unknown and worsening.  Rotor informs Sally that Sonic and Tails haven't reported back, and Sally lets the stress get to her by crying on Rotor's shoulder.  Hang on a minute, I want to check something...Yep, it still says "Mike Gallagher" wrote this story, though this single page is much stronger than his usual work (mercifully).  I think he's getting the hang of this!  And Galen's drawings of Sally are pretty darned amazing.  Spaziante's influence REALLY shows. Nice tail!  She's also got a great bootie.
     From the sublime to the ridiculously obese: Tails, still wearing his SWATbot costume, realizes that Robotnik is headed toward the Floating Island.  So does Knuckles, as the Death Egg does a Kilroy over the clouds on the approach.  Knux, however, gets zapped as he approaches the ship, but the Chaotix are waiting for him down below.  Robotnik then launches two large "Burrobots" which look a lot like giant versions of Grounder from the syndicated TV series.  The two bots clank off in search of the Chaos Emeralds, but Archimedes has already figured that out.  So Knux and the crew go after the bots in what WOULD have been an impressive two-page spread if only they'd gotten the colors right.
     Once outside of the burning building....  Sorry, that was how an infamous chapter of a Nancy Drew mystery began.  She went from trapped inside the building at the end of the previous chapter to outside at the beginning of the next with NO account of how she got there.  Gallagher sort of follows in the same footsteps by having Sonic declare that he's worked his way "up the levels" to the control room.  Page limitations, I suppose.  But it's compensated by a VERY complex plot situation at the bottom of page 18: Robotnik getting ready to attack the  Floating Island with Tails/SWATbot inching out of the control room not noticing Sonic who unaware that the SWATbot is his little bro in disguise prepares to trash to SWATbot!  Whew!  That's a cliffhanger ending right there!  But on we go as the Death Egg tries pushing the Floating Island into the sea, attempting to overcome the "prodigous" [Hey, Fred, you need a proofreader?] power of the Chaos Emerald.  Robotnik pushes all systems to 150% and turns the amplifiers up to 11.  He succeeds in tilting the island so that Knuckles slides off, glides away and gets a look at the Floating Island being turned into landfill.  Not if HE can help it!
     Letter-Quest: a couple hints about #3, which is coming right up.  Also plugs for "Sonic Live!" and #43.  "Find Your Name" and Fan Art pages are oversaturated but it only partly ruins some fine art this time around, especially a very manga-esque rendering of Sally auditioning for a new gig in anticipation of her getting killed off here.
     Sonic Quest #3:"Ordering: Death Egg Over Easy and not a moment too soon!  And easy on the rehash!"
     Look out, old Manny is back.  And I mean the OLD Manny who couldn't draw worth beans.  For your consideration, please look at pages 2 and 3.  Now tell me with a straight face that Sonic
doesn't have the EXACT SAME FACIAL EXPRESSION IN ALL NINE TIMES HE'S USED!  Sure, there are subtle variations: Sonic with his mouth closed, Sonic with his eyes opened wider.  But it's the same face!  This is stupid!  NOBODY can lose it THIS fast, not after the superior artwork seen in #2 (notwithstanding the color snafu).  And Manny's subsequent lame artwork for "The Dream Zone" (#43) only confirms my suspicions.  Did the change in inkers from SQ#2 (Jim Amash and Jay Oliveras) to SQ#3 (Harvo and Jay Oliveras) make THAT much of a difference?  I had to wonder whether, under deadline pressures, Spaziante didn't "lend a hand" and do some of the pencilling while letting Galen take the credit.  That's the only other explanation I can come up with.  But the gang at Archie would NEVER do anything so unethical, would they?  ("Excuse me, Freddy, Newt Gingrich is calling you from his cell phone on line two.").
     OK, so much for the artwork, let's get to the plot.  Sonic gets to rough up the SWATbot a bit before realizing that Tails is inside.  As Sonic heads for Robotnik, we realize why he just sat there while Sonic and Tails had their exposition: he's sealed off by plexiglass.  Enclosing Sonic, he begins pumping poison gas into Sonic's chamber.  The suspense mounts as we look at a full-page ad for adulterated yogurt on the facing page.  Tails, however, busts through a wall using the SWATbot bod and then opens fire with the bot's blasters.  He not only manages to free Sonic but he also cuts out the downward thrusters.  Newton's third law kicks in as Robotnik makes yet another escape.  On the Floating Island, there's quite a bit of grandiose posing and dialogue from Knuckles who admits (in passing) that he "caught a break".  So having not accomplished anything in this saga except to help bust up the Burrobots and despite his "equal billing" on the cover of #3 with Sonic, his part is over and aside from a lousy reaction shot at the end he gets to collect his paycheck.  Gotta do something about these "pay or play" contracts.
     OK, here's where I have to defer to those who know the games better than I do.  Robotnik goes to his backup, about whom I don't know anything: Silver Sonic.  Looks impressive; fights stupid.  Knocks Sonic into a wall, giving Sonic the opportunity to use a couple live wires to short him out.  Hmmm, 3 pages -- about the length of some of Mike Tyson's recent bouts.  OK, so Buttnik goes to the backup's backup: some body armor called the "Eggs-O-Skeleton".  Looks like the old Gallagher is back in town as well.  This ploy doesn't hold up either since Sonic has taken a cue from Tails and climbed into the Silver Sonic to "extend himself" for Robotnik's benefit.  They duke it out for a few pages and I can't help but think of Siguorney Weaver operating that cargo hauler in "Aliens II" and giving the critter a taste of kung fu.  They battle their way into the room where Tails waits to deliver the deathless line: "I rigged the Death Egg to explode in twenty minutes, but your battle with Robotnik has damaged so many internal systems, it could ignite at any moment."  And all without using the Owner's Manual (see "How To Rig The Death Egg To Explode In Twenty Minutes", page 817).  He later speaks of "the antimatter matrix reach[ing] the nucleonic dispersion chamber"; hey Poindexter, you swallow a dictionary for breakfast?  It's understandable as technobabble goes, but not too plausible coming from Tails.  On their way out, our heroes just happen to pass a "magic ring junction box" -- all together now: "GEE, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?"  They make a jump for it, Sonic jettisons the Silver suit and the Death Egg goes the way of the Death Star(s).  Not that it does any good: the rings fail to cure the King and Robotnik escapes to fight another day, after auditing Snively's books.
     What can you say about this story with a straight face?  The artwork was some of the most inconsistent around.  It started bad, got better, then went to bad again.  And the story was a muddle. Gallagher threw in too many characters who ended up doing nothing, and some of what the others ended up doing just wasn't up to par.  Sonic's whole "worked his way up the levels" angle in #2 was hack writing at its worst.  At least Gallagher got his act together to a surprising degree for the Sonic Blast special.
     But perhaps the most objectionable aspect was the one Freddy was up-front about: that this story accomplished about as much as Geoffrey did as a glorified doorman.  OK, Robotnik gets defeated again; like nobody could have guessed that THAT was going to happen!  That particular punch was telegraphed by the MISuse of the Death Egg device.  Yes, "misuse".  At least in the Star Wars film, they used the Death Star to destroy Alderaan and give the viewer an idea of what the gang was up against.  Such a waste of paper and time, all capped off by the oversaturation of #2.  In some ways, it's kind of symbolic...though not NEARLY as symbolic as the grotto sequence in #1!
     Letter-Quest: Thanks to all those who did/didn't deserve it.  Plug for #44 and the return of Evil Sonic with an Evil Knuckles as well in what's beginning to shape up to be the recurring Bizarro World for this series.  And at the end of December, "Sonic Blast #1: It's the official comic adaptation of [i.e., it's the Glorified Print Advertisement for] the game with the very same name."  Also covers for #45 (Mobie returns) and #46 (Sonic and Geoffrey arm-wrestling or something).  The "Find Your Name" page includes readers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania (technically part of Australia) and Singapore.  That means that Sally's demise will be an international tragedy.  The fan art page features some manga-inspired humor with Bunnie having egg problems of her own as an Easter bunny, along with a nice landscape of Knothole.  I've already commented upon the drawing of Sally playing the field before Ken tells her to hit the road.  From a great height.