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paulagnewart · 10 days ago

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Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 12/12: Carry On, My Wayward Sonic!

Sonic the Hedgehog issue 266 AU Publication Date: 29th December 2014 Price: $8.50

Carry On, My Wayward Sonic. There'll Be Peace When 'Botnik's Gone. Lay Your Weary Legs to Rest. Freedom Fight No More.

Obligatory parodies aside, there comes a time when everyone has to stop and say goodbye. Sometimes it's sudden, others gradual and methodical, yet its lingering hurt remains the same. As the space year that is 2024 reaches a close, there's still time for one last super sonic spin back to 10 years ago, when Australian fans prepared to pour one out for their favourite comic book.

Farewells were equally present at the box office. After knocking Katniss Everdeen from her three week domination, eager moviegoers entered a war on which final installment of a trilogy would reign supreme. They paid tribute to the dearly departed Robin Williams and Mickey Rooney, neither of whom lived to see Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb while Christopher Lee and Ian Holm bid goodbye to in what would prove their final film roles in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

But with goodbyes came new beginnings. The final few weeks of 2014 belonged to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars when their acclaimed collaboration Uptown Funk worked its magic all the way up the charts. And if someone from the future materialised to proclaim Uptown Funk would not only be among the top 3 selling singles of all time, but remain popular enough to feature over seven years later as part of a dance sequence in the second live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Fans would probably reply "There's a *second* Sonic movie?!"

It can be hard to imagine there was a time the Blue Blur's big cinematic feature almost never happened. When news broke in June via The Hollywood Reporter that Sony were deep in developing such a film, fans met the news with extreme trepidation. A live-action/animated hybrid like their successful Smurfs films? The latest news being a conversation a month earlier with co-writer Van Robichaux, whom already proclaimed being a big fan of the series, announced their script was aiming for a PG-13 rating for violence. Fans openly pondered a potential dark and edgy hedgy awaited them. None of which would be found in the equally perplexing rumours of something called Sonic Runners.

So what of the local political scene? After fifteen months in the top job, that oft-quoted "honeymoon period" was well and truly over for Tony Abbott. He may have coerced voters by a grand sweep of electoral reforms including that pivotal "No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS!" promise, but the usually complicit conservative mainstream media smelt blood, and begun the usual trick of turning against their once-adored conservative Prime Minister.

2014 saw the proverbial dominos fell. A harsh annual budget built on electoral backflips and $5 billion dollar deficit, heavy losses in the Victorian election and South Australia by-election, to say nothing of pushing unpopular policies such as deregulating university fees. "Yes, it's difficult..." Abbott (con)fronted the press a week prior. "...but step-by-step it's getting done and I think the public in the end will focus on the substance and not on the soap opera." To Abbott's credit however, he vowed to "sweat blood" in achieving constitutional recognition for Australia's Indigenous population, but not before a pre-Christmas cabinet reshuffle. Ironically said reshuffle played in the favour of conservative colleagues Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, both of whom destined to play pivotal roles bringing Abbott's leadership, and the prospects of Indigenous recognition, to an end.

As for the increasingly cultural dead zone that was free family entertainment, Toasted TV joined the ranks of trundling over to exclusively digital channel Eleven, and on that day aired a flurry of Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot, Mia & Me, Pokemon XY, Totally Wild and Lalaloopsy repeats. Only a new adventure of Wakfu at 7:30am was there to break up the cavalcade. Channel 9's output offered little better; a whole day of repeats ranging from Digimon Fusion and Max Steel, to Winx Club, Power Rangers Megaforce and Super Megaforce, along with perennial Thunderbirds half-hour 'cliffhanger' edition of 'Brink of Disaster'. As with their competition, only a single new toon that day; the classic Yu-Gi-Oh! episode 'Unwanted Guest: Part 2', ironically once rival Ten's media darling, this and the entire fifth season were skipped, instead chosen to purchase the supposed white-hot Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

The carefree days of early morning children's entertainment were long gone, as was the Sonic fandom's critical reception landscape. Social Media had by that point permanently wired itself into its collective consciousness, making it further difficult to gauge unified reactions. Yet at least four vanguards of the message board days remained standing. Sonic Retro… didn't talk about the story, instead focused on speculating the lineup of Sonic and Mega Man's impending Worlds Unite crossover. The fine folks over at Power Rings were in a similar boat. Archie Sonic was still their bread and butter, however its remaining users had shifted more towards sharing their own sprite comics and fanfics. And as for Sonic Stadium, any reviews swiftly disappeared under a flurry of soon-to-be-deleted pages debating Sonic's status as "a Free Spirit that can't be controlled!", or whether Ian would keep his word on Shard making a comeback. It's telling when independent sites like Arcade Sushi were giving the comic more attention.

For any self-respecting Archie Sonic enthusiast still looking to dig deep into their favourite comic, Ian's very own BumbleKing Forums remained the place to be. Cracks were slowly beginning to appear which would ultimately cause the board's demise, but for that moment, its hundreds of rowdy regulars still went about happily posting their comments and speculations. Or at least some were happy.

"Plotwise it was really neat seeing Sonic in a situation like this." They started. "He's so worried about the Werehog hurting people and it makes sense all he knows is he Hulked out and wrecked some stuff and he's not going to let that happen. People keep talking about how a more "Segay" Sonic can't have character development but I've felt more connection with this archie-Sonic than the one Pre-Reboot. I can really truely see that this Sonic is a hero he wants to help people he'll do whatever it takes he'll trin with Moss to make sure he doesn't get anyone hurt.". Such was the enthusiasm that "I never really felt that with Pre-Reboot Sonic he also felt like the moron that SatAM played him as who treated everything like a game and saving lives was an after thought. I really couldn't see Pre-Reboot Sonic staying behind to make sure the Werehog didn't kill anyone. He'd more wing it and hope everything turned out okay."

"Moss is starting to grow on me! :(hearty laughter):" Said another pleased user. "No, but seriously, Moss just became my new fa-vorite character in this universe (Sorry, Relic). Its like, he's cool & calm, can can give sonic a run for his money (In the jungle that is, but probably other places too), & seems like hes trolling even though hes giving wisdom! I also kinda like the idea of Mighty leading his own team of freedom fighters. That would be an interesting concept"

Not everyone shared this sentiment. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have our first post-reboot Mary Sue. Meet Moss: A representa-tive of (some vague version of) a real-world religion, whose teachings in that religion--despite not be-ing at all related to Sonic's beliefs--are just what Sonic needs to hear so he can solve his problem. (Hey, just 'cuz he's not accepting any Personal Lords or Saviors today doesn't mean it's not preachy.)" the complaints began. "Moss is so wise, in fact, that Mighty (who before the reboot was peaceful because that's just the kind of guy he was) now owes his ability to keep his cool to Moss's teachings, and preaches about how wise Moss is at every opportunity. Moss is even so wise that he can crack wise at Sonic, and condescend at every turn, and still have Sonic (grudgingly) respect him! (What is he, the SatAM version of Sally?) But Moss brings more to the story than just wisdom: He can also give Sonic a run for his mony in a race! How does he do this? While he may not possess Sonic's speed, he is able to use his environment to his ad-vantage in ways Sonic can't, just like Knuckles did in the Genesis games. Ugh. If I were in Sonic's posi-tion, there's no way I'd train with this guy to help me control my anger. Every time he opens his mouth, I want to punch him!"

Other users joined in the debate, going so far comparing Moss unfavourably to the likes of Master Spliter or Yoda. A sentiment not universally shared, yet more often than not "…definitely getting on my nerves, and for more than one reason. He's cliched like all heck, but that's not what really bugs me, it's that he's overshadowing Sonic's friends, who belong in Moss's role much more than he does. Tails mentions "we can help [Sonic]", and yeah, he's right. Why is Sonic trusting this random hippie when he has his friends to fall back on to help him control the Werehog?"

Elsewhere Sally Acorn was undergoing her now-standard cycle of revolving lovedom and hatedom, some arguing her place as being "bland" and "a blank slate" in the new timeline. A female character put to task by fans over personality problems? What a surprise. Nor would she be the last, when one member emphatically demanded "Why are Cream and Big sidelined ? I mean, Sonic Heroes took place in this world, didn't it ? Like, seriously? I know Cream is a little girl, but come on! Shes like the only one who barely gets do anything! The only thing Ive seen her do was just serve tea & cookies like 2-3 times now! Heck, even Big is at least doing something in the next SU arc! If Heroes, Battle, & Advanced 3 happened in this world, She had at least have some sort of skills that can allow her to go on mis-sions! I mean she can fly, use cheese as a freaking projectile, she can do a spin like everyone else (I think almost all sonic characters, or at least 7 of them can), & with two other people, she can use thundershoot! & Its not like she has to do missions by herself but let her have some of the spotlight at least!". Others agreed, declaring "For cream it's like old continuity amy rose all over again.".

From the more mixed side of Mobius, "I enjoyed the issue, but does anyone else feel like Sonic gained control over the Werehog way too quickly? For all the trouble it's been giving him ever since he got gassed back in "Countdown to Chaos", it feels kind of cheap for him get it under control so easily after only one out of control transfor-mation." however "I'm enjoying Sonic and Mighty's continued interaction in this storyline. They finally feel like actual friends, unlike the old continuity where their friendship was more of something that was just talked about rather than shown for the most part.". Elsewhere fans had just about their fill of Robotnik's newest creations hogging the spotlight, declaring "I really hope the staff is getting all the E-100s out of their system, because that's a ridiculous amount at this point.".

Archie Sonic's sweeping reboot was proving something of a mixed bag among fans both new and old, with a rift forming between the optimistic and pessimistic. "This isn't going to be over in a year." One fan openly opined in what would prove frighteningly prophetic. "It'll be amazing if The Shattered World Crisis is even over in 2016. I say this as someone who's actually enjoying the Arc/Saga/Epic/Whatever and think's it's the bet the books been in a long time but there's such a thing as a story being too decompressed."

It's a story thousands of Australian fans would miss.

Comic imports were in steep decline, and by late 2014 only a smattering of DC, Archie and Dark Horse titles remained. In spite of being one of distributor Gordon and Gotch's longest-running and best-selling comic imports, the future of Archie Sonic was abruptly cut. Issue 267 was still solicited for a 29th January 2015 release but would never see the light of day. How ironic the comic ended on Sally Acorn, once a media darling and face of SEGA World Sydney, take a hit and collapse from Robotnik's horde. Not exactly a subtle "out with the old" policy.

Beyond a handful of sporadic Super Digests, Sonic's near-unbroken streak of 22 years standing proud at newsagents, toy stores and supermarkets across the land down under was over. Sure fans could visit comic stores for later issues, but those were (and still are) rare compared to newsagents.

It outlived Image, Malibu, IDW and even Marvel imports. It continued the adventures of Sonic between the extensive breaks between cartoons. It was readily available to virtually every town who ordered newspapers. It offered affordable adventures for those of us who lived through "the recession Australia had to have".

In an era of numerous self-aggrandising social media infuenzas who claim everything before a certain year is rubbish, or love pedalling out that ever-present pathetically playground-level buzzword about Archie Sonic being "weird", or those superficially pointless debates over what's a superior canon, none of that matters. Above all else, the comics made so many fans happy. It sparked imaginations, driving them to read more, to create stories and artwork of their very own.

Quite the way past cool legacy.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonic the Hedgehog Comics #Archie Sonic #Archie Comics #Ian Flynn #Jamal Peppers #Terry Austin #Gabriel Cassata #John Workman #Lamar Wells #Ben Hunzeker #Paul Kaminski #Victor Gorelick #Vincent Lovallo #Comic Books #Australia #2014 #Newsagents #Musings

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