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IDW Sonic the Hedgehog # 1

By Mark Rodriguez

Sonic has had possibly the longest running comic based on a videogame for years, until Archie comics decided to finally end it in 2017. Starting way back in 2013, the original comic was a goofy and sillier story based on a mix of the 90's Sonic cartoons and the actual games at the time, and eventually evolved into including the characters from modern day Sonic games. They even had a series of situations leading to them replacing the 90's Robotnik design to look like the modern day Dr. Eggman.



Well, it all came to an end but now IDW comics, who just love to get their hands on nostalgia like TMNT, Ghostbusters, GI Joe and Transformers have decided to create their own Sonic comics. However, it doesn't look like it will follow Archie comics continuity and will be closer to the actual games. So it will probably suck if you're fan of the Archie created characters like Sally Acorn and Antoine. Anyways, let's check out how the IDW comic handles our favorite blue blur.



The comic explains that Sonic has been fighting Dr. Eggman and his creations for years, but now after their final battle, the mad doctor has vanished. However, Eggman's robots have not vanished and continue to attack the citizens. Sonic arrives in time to rescue some people (well, anthropomorphic animals, but yeah) from some robots.

Sonic faces a giant robot with a huge metallic mallet. The hedgehog taunts him as he zips all over the place, but ends up being surrounded by similar robots with mallets. Sonic was lucky enough to be near a sewer and hided under the lid as the robots all swing their mallets down. The hedgehog makes a run for it, but the robots give chase and can actually catch up to him. One of them is about to bash Sonic with his mallet but Tails swoops in to rescue him.



Tails asks about the status of the town. Sonic says the town's own militia can handle the regular Badniks, but they're going to have to help them with the giant mallet robots. Sonic and Tails combine to form a giant Super Spin Dash and slices a robot in half. Tails then tosses Sonic into another robot as he takes care of yet another. Tails mentioned things would go faster if they had Knuckles helping them, but Sonic says they're fine.



The remaining robots try to make a break for it but our heroes can't let them attack another town. Sonic attacks the remaining giant robots while Tails flies ahead and closes down the drawbridge to keep the smaller Badniks from escaping. Sonic is happy that they won, but Tails is worried.

Tails says when they defeated Eggman, the robots lost all focus and would mostly cause trouble accidentally. In this case, this was an actual planned out and coordinated attack, including the mallet robots. They're not sure if this means that Eggman is back or not since it wouldn't be like him to come back without announcing it in some grand fashion.



Sonic says it's the same to him if the attacks are planned out or not, he will still travel all over the world and destroy any Badnik he finds. Tails is worried and asks Sonic to be careful. Sonic says he can always come along, but Tails decides he should stay behind and help the citizens rebuild their town.

Sonic speeds off but is being watched by a flying robot. Some mystery villain sitting in Eggman's chair is watching and orders his robots to attack the nearest town to draw Sonic to it. This mystery villain plans to take out both Sonic and Amy in one shot.



My opinions

This was a good jumping on point for new readers, or people that have never read the Archie series, which would also confused fans that only play the games. This story stuck to basics, which was basically what the first few games were, Sonic and Tails VS the World, going around, wrecking evil robots left and right. I also like that we even saw some of the Badniks from the actual games, since the comics always liked to just make up all sorts of robots later on.

Knuckles gets a shoutout and Amy Rose appears on the last panel, so we can assume this all takes place during the modern green eyed Sonic era. I recognize the art and a few of the artists from the Archie comics, so the character design doesn't look too far off from what came before, but the comic does feature awesome huge clean panels. I would have wondered how things would have been if they went with the Sonic Mania art style, but oh well.



The comic starting with Eggman being missing after his 'last battle with Sonic' could make this a continuation of sorts of the Archie series. It's way to soon to see if they will include any of the 90's cartoon era characters like Sally Acorn and Bunny Rabbot, but I kinda hope they don't. With such a long running series, the cast became incredibly overcrowded. I understand back then, the only characters in the game were Sonic, Tails and Robotnik, so an extended cast we needed, but now in the newer games Sonic already has an extended cast that is bordering on being overcrowded as well. Let's not start that mess all over again.

The characters are cool as you'd expect. Sonic is just eager to have fun and action, and while Tails enjoys it too, he is more analytical. He also shows an interesting side of maturity and thoughtfulness that he could do more good helping the victims of the robot attack then going off to fight some more with Sonic. I can kinda see previous versions of Tails whining or complaining that Sonic tells him to stay behind while he goes off to kick ass. I do like seeing Sonic trying to inspire the people to fight back as well, it's cool seeing the regular townfolk fight back, though I wish they devoted a panel or two to it.

I am curious as to what happened to Eggman, and with him not even appearing in flashbacks we don't know if it's classic Eggman or modern Eggman, though I'm pretty sure it's the modern one. I am curious as to who the new person in charge is, but I just pray they don't do like Dr. Wiley, where it's a tease that this is some brand new villain, but it's just Eggman behind it all anyway.

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