IDW Sonic the Hedgehog # 3

 By Mark Rodriguez

After defeating Eggman in an off-panel war, all of his robots have gone haywire and started attacking at random. Sonic and Tails fought some off and realize that some of the robots are acting too organized. After helping Amy Rose save a town from a robot invasion, Sonic now dashes off to see what Knuckles is up to. Let's see what happens next.

 

"Fallout Part 3" opens with Sonic showing up at the south city and finding some smashed up robots. He says he got there too late for once as Knuckles is hogging all the fun. Sure enough Knuckles is smashing a badnik to bits. Sonic runs in and asks if there were any left for him. Knuckles asks what brought him there and Sonic explains that Amy told him Knuckles was checking the town for any trouble and figured he might need a hand. He remarks that Commander Knuckles is awfully far from his HQ.  

Knuckles says it was more fun when he was helping save the world, but now it's rebuilding, scheduling and inventory. He doesn't have the patience for it and would rather return to Angel Island for a treasure hunt. Sonic says Amy also tried to enlist him in the Resistance. Knuckles laughs and says she should have known better. 

Sonic asks what's happening in the area. Knuckles explains that the town is a hub for wispon (different types of weapons in this world) distribution. The shipment suddenly dried up so he came to find out why. Knuckles yells out to the wall defending the town that he took out all the robots and as Commander of the Resistance he demands they let him in. The guard there yells from a window that he has strict orders to not let anyone in. Knuckles asks who ordered this and the guard says he isn't allowed to say. Sonic and Knuckles give each other a look and decide to go in anyway, with Sonic running up the wall and Knuckles climbing up the wall.

 

Sonic and Knuckles leap into the town on the other side of the wall and everyone runs off. Knuckles figured they might be spooked since the robot attacks have been getting more aggressive, but Sonic thinks something else is up. One of the people says that Sonic and Knuckles shouldn't be there. Sonic says they can fix whatever is wrong. The villager says that 'they' took all the Wisps and wispons, and they're now unstoppable. Knuckles asks who 'they' are, and Sonic points out that Knuckles just took out a Super Badnik on his own. Sonic asks the villager to start from the beginning.

The villager explains that shortly before the war ended, two mercenaries arrived and helped beat back the Badniks. They said they would improve their defenses, but they actually ended up taking their weapons and making the villagers prisoners in their own town. The townsfolk has no way to fight back, and they can't even escape due to all the Badniks running around on the other side of the wall. 

Sonic and Knuckles are ready to take these guys down. The villager tells them that the mercenaries have converted the supply depot into the fortress and gives directions on how to find it. Sonic and Knuckles rush off to face them. 

Sonic and Knuckles sneak into the supply depot and Sonic finds the Wisps. Knuckles explains that before Tails went on his own, he gave them the cypher to understand the Wisps' language. They were glad to help fight Eggman and chose to stay in deployment pods, but now they are being horded. Just then they hear laughter, as we see the two mercenaries laughing at one of the villagers that tripped and spilled drinks meant to serve them. We see that these two guys have also forced other villagers to serve them food and fan them. Knuckles is eager to fight but Sonic says they should wait until the civilians clear out first.

Sonic calls out the two skunks and introduces Knuckles and himself to them. The larger skunk says that nobody invited them to crash on their turf. The smaller skunk says he heard of Sonic but he haven't heard of them. The skunks overly dramatically introduce themselves as Rough and Tumble and Sonic can barely hold his laughter. Knuckles doesn't get it and Sonic says he's the salt of the Earth. Knuckles doesn't care and is ready to fight, as are the two skunks.

 

Rough, the smaller skunk, leaps over Knuckles' flying attack while Sonic smashes into Tumble, the larger skunk, in his Spin Dash attack. Knuckles delivers a punch to Rough, sending him back. Tumble catches Sonic, still in his ball form, and bounces him around like a basketball. Tumble then tosses Sonic towards the ceiling as if he were a three point shot, but the hedgehog bounces back and slams into him. 

Rough flips towards a wall and bounces off it as he releases a 'Stink Bomber', gassing Knuckles. The echidna has tears in his eyes due to the stench but he still manages to punch Rough right through the floorboards, leaving only his head sticking out. Tumble pulls Rough out of the hole and says they're not done yet.

Sonic asks if Knuckles is OK and the echidna does his best to shake it off. Rough and Tumble grab some wispons. Knuckles offers to distract them while Sonic grabs a wispon of his own, but the hedgehog has a better idea. 

Sonic calls out to the Wisps and says he was the one that saved their planet from Dr. Eggman. The Wisps chose to stay on Earth and helped the Resistance defeat Eggman as well. Sonic says he knows the Wisps aren't fighters but they've shown to be brave. Rough and Tumble need to bully them around, but the Wisps don't need them. The Wisps that are powering the skunks' wispons get angry, as do the rest of the contained wisps. The Wisps leave their wispons as all of them swarm around the skunks. 

Sonic and Knuckles say their own variation of the Rough and Tumble intro line, which angers the skunks since that's their thing. As the Wisps swarm around them, Sonic and Knuckles easily defeat the skunks. Later on the villagers cheer as Sonic and Knuckles shove the defeated duo out of their town. One of the villagers asks Sonic how they can repay him, and the hedgehog asks for some chili dogs to call it even. 

 

One of the Wisps says something in its language, which Sonic can't translate without Tails around. The Wisp jumps into the villager's wispon, and Sonic says that means they're willing to stick around and help out. The villagers take the skunks to prison. The skunks threaten that their cells won't hold them for long and warn that Sonic and Knuckles have made lifelong enemies out of... Rough and Tumble! Knuckles threatens them with his fists while Sonic laughs at how cheesy they are.

Knuckles thanks Sonic for the help, not that he needed any. Sonic says he didn't share any of the Badniks outside so he owed him this. Knuckles hopes this is a sign of things slowing down since he does miss his home. Sonic says they still have to figure out who is controlling the Badniks, but for now they can party with the villagers. The mystery villain is watching this and determines that since Knuckles is playing the hero... this leaves Angel Island and the Master Emerald unguarded. That will accelerate his plans considerably....

 

My thoughts- 

I had to double-check due to all the newer Sonic games and lore but it looks like Rough and Tumble are the first IDW-original Sonic characters. I knew the Archie/SATAM characters like Sally Acorn and Bunnie Rabbot were out, but I figured IDW would create their own characters eventually, especially when it comes to enemies. They can't be fighting Eggman all the time, after all. I liked their anime-ish dynamic, announcing themselves with a motto as if they were Team Rocket (and other anime duos I'm sure) and calling out the names of their attack moves.

I was surprised to see Knuckles on such friendly terms with Sonic. Usually those two always find some excuse to fight at least a little before they remember they have to work together on whatever the mission happens to be. Sonic is also usually more of a punk to Knuckles, taking potshots at him since it's so easy to piss the echidna off. Knuckles kept his 'I don't need your help' attitude but he wasn't a jerk about it. It was an interesting dynamic and it reminded me of how much friendlier they are in the live action movies (once they joined forces of course) even though this comic predates them by several years.

As previously mentioned, I'm not 100% up on all things Sonic, but I remember the Wisps were being introduced in Sonic Colors where they gave Sonic different power ups depending on the one being used. It seems they're used to power weapons calls wispons, but the comic never actually showed anyone use one. I assume they would fire energy blasts or something, but we only see them being waved around or not working (since the Wisps refused to work for Rough and Tumble). Looking back, the guns the villagers were using last issue were most likely wispons powered by the Wisps, but any reader out there can correct me if I'm wrong.

Imagine telling someone in the 90's that Sonic games would be out on Nintendo consoles like it's no big deal. It's wild, man.

 

While not outwardly stated, I'm assuming Sonic left the Resistance for a similar reason that Knuckles like to go off on his own. Bashing the bad guys is just way more fun than staying behind to clean up the mess. We might still get more of a reason Sonic refuses to return in a later issue, but I'm surprised the more punch-happy Knuckles stayed while the more responsible Tails left. Maybe we'll get more backstory on the Resistance and why Sonic and Tails left later on. 

Looks like art duties went back to Tracy Yardley this time with his more on-model approach. I mean he drew Rough and Tumble as if they were really from the games. We'll see next issue if Adam Bryce returns. Perhaps the two were zig-zagging to keep up with this and I assume other IDW comics? Again, I like both guys but I do like Tracy's style a little more. The styles are very similar and probably wouldn't have been as noticeable if they weren't collected back to back in a graphic novel format.

We'll see what other characters Sonic will run into next time as it seems that now this mystery villain has set his sights on Angel Island and the unguarded Master Emerald.