Newbie's Perspective Sonic Comic Issue 254 Review
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AmusantTranscription
00:00Issue 254. It starts out with an entire page of no-plot progression.
00:07What's with the weird-looking, cutesy character on the wash-your-hands poster?
00:12It's so out of place with the situation.
00:14So is the green character.
00:16Sonic comforts Sally, saying something she should have already assumed with his hand on hers.
00:22And she thanks him and holds it.
00:24And he looks concerned like he should.
00:27Then it shows what happened after he carried Sally away from the last battle.
00:32She complains that the fighting going on is her fault.
00:36Which doesn't make any sense because Ix is causing the problems, which would have happened anyways.
00:43I don't know why she said failed either.
00:46The only thing she failed at was failing to be a leader in the previous fight for a reason completely unrelated to it,
00:52that she shouldn't be blaming herself for.
00:54This is reminding me of when Carl Bullers broke Sally at a few points.
00:59And that sort of thing made him get accused of hating her.
01:02I get that's realistic for her to be upset because she was an evil robot for longer than she was in the reboot.
01:08But that doesn't mean she can't be useful just because she's upset.
01:12And the arc of fatigue is compounded by the release schedule.
01:16Sonic hugs her and comforts her.
01:19I can never get enough of seeing Sonic comfort someone like this.
01:23She warns him to be careful.
01:25Sonic lampshades how confusing it is that he's seeing Dr. Quack's wife instead of him.
01:31If it's confusing, why is it happening?
01:34And why did he even expect Dr. Quack in a mental health ward instead of the regular part of the hospital?
01:41We never knew what job she had, so there's nothing wrong with her being in this position in theory.
01:47I'd love to see her get a little more depth.
01:50I just wish the plot got a move on to something actually interesting to remind me why I love Archie.
01:56Because I couldn't care less about this.
01:59All she does is state the obvious.
02:02Clearly the pacing should be faster here.
02:05People defended Flynn Archie because of the cool content, and I don't see any here.
02:11Sonic thanks her.
02:13I don't know why they had to illustrate the slap again.
02:16She had no reason to think she'd get mad at any of her friends because she keeps irrationally feeling guilty for decisions she was forced to make because of a world-saving decision.
02:28It's better to not reference the slap since she's hated enough.
02:32Although the only people I've seen hate her are Game Purists, and their viewpoint of Archie is invalid anyways.
02:39So you should take anything they say about it with a grain of salt.
02:42Sonic lambshades that Bunny should've come to her friends for help and they would've gotten her through it.
02:47That'd only be true if they had the brains to give her a nanite suit or other technology.
02:52So this better be his point.
02:54I like seeing Sonic and Sally be jokey around each other in one panel with her being self-deprecating.
03:00He comforts her and pats her head and they hug.
03:03I always appreciate that.
03:05I just prefer seeing him show affection to other characters, like Tails.
03:10Hamlin finally explains that Ixiz had the council wrapped around his fingers with his emotion-amplifying magic.
03:17I can't help but be a bit frustrated and underwhelmed that it gives him an excuse to barely take responsibility for the council putting him in power.
03:25But at least he did say they facilitated it.
03:29And heightened emotion still doesn't explain it because you'd think increased fear would motivate them even further to tell someone super fast to run at Ixiz with a sword of lightpoint at him and instantly end the conflict.
03:42Rosemary insists on saying that the Secret Freedom Fighters and Nicole Defier in Exile are acts of treason.
03:50When it should be obvious they did good things that justified this.
03:54I really wish this character was removed.
03:57It's a new writer. There's no reason to keep up her old personality just for the sake of it when everybody hated it to the point where she and her husband are on the scrappy page on TV tropes.
04:09So while I'd rather they improve her, if nobody's interested in improving her, I'm just wishing they killed her off or roboticized her so she won't ruin every scene she's in anymore.
04:20At least Hamlin is siding with the heroes until Isamahel says they shouldn't release them without charge.
04:27He at least admits that it was hardly their first mistake and he should've been nicer to Sally.
04:32But I don't understand the rest of his dialogue.
04:35The heroes would've become at odds with the council no matter what for putting Ixiz on the throne.
04:41Dylan looks better.
04:43And Hamlin says they keep acting like they're infallible.
04:47This has been feeling out of character, but I'll take an improvement any day.
04:52Shouldn't an actual judge be the one deciding the punishment of lawbreakers?
04:57Harvey has the common sense idea to punish them with community service they would gladly do.
05:03Elias tells off the bitch and Harvey tries to provide a flimsy excuse for the secret freedom fighters still existing as a group.
05:12There could be other agents working for Eggman seeking control.
05:16He should explain why it requires someone who isn't known as an enemy by Eggman to deal with such things.
05:22I'm just wondering why Sonic can't handle that.
05:25Penelope admits he's right.
05:27Hamlin shakes Larry's hand.
05:30And Dylan thanks him for what he did.
05:33I just remember him being used by Ixiz as a shield to keep Sonic from finally killing him.
05:38Like he gets his enemies in the games all the time.
05:42Harvey's idea was accepted.
05:44Why weren't we shown the moment where it was accepted instead of panels of Rosemary Sutkin?
05:50Sonic calls Tails' little bro like he should and doesn't hold it against him that he kept something from him.
05:56As something's ramped up from before.
05:59Jeffrey calls his wife Love.
06:01The couple shows concern over Sally, of course.
06:04And Jeffrey's somehow not sure whether he could use magic to cure a coma.
06:09It's elemental magic, of course not.
06:13I love that he still has his magic, though.
06:16I shouldn't have to compliment that, but a sly encounter decided to rob him of his cool powers as the one good thing to come out of his betrayal.
06:23Sonic thanks Jeffrey and shows concern for him for giving him at last.
06:28And gets thanked.
06:30Then it looks like there'll be another waste of time scene.
06:34Sonic and Sally show each other physical affection again, and I'm reminded that it just so happened that Antoine's room is right next to Jeffrey's by an amazing coincidence.
06:43Which is why Sonic doesn't stop her from looking in it.
06:47At least Sally's angsting isn't over the top this time.
06:51I finally get to see Antoine wake up to annoy me with his unrealistic English mess-ups once more.
06:58And the story insists on ending there to go into another story that looks like a complete waste of time.
07:04I wouldn't be harsh about plots wasting my time if the comic didn't insist on still being serialized despite a sluggish release schedule when already IDW taught me to despise serialized storytelling.
07:17It makes me less motivated to read a Sonic comic when I know it's gonna leave me hanging when the earlier comics had no problem ending stories in the same issue they started.
07:27If the comic didn't have dangling plot threads and was episodic, I'd say they can tell whatever story they want as long as it's respectful to the characters.
07:36It's unrealistic that it can even talk at all after waking up from a coma.
07:40So I have to assume rings or the natural chaos energy all over the place is the explanation.
07:46Mina says her mother will talk to the council about un-exiling Nicole.
07:50She thanks Mina and expects me to believe she ever had trouble understanding how other people were feeling at any point.
07:56When did Mina ever have problems with shyness?
08:00She tried to run after Sonic and tripped, and she kissed his cheek without permission.
08:06She was acting like Amy Rose, and Amy isn't shy.
08:10Her only shyness was stage fright, which is a different category of shyness.
08:16She says the singing might be good for her, so I get to see Nicole sing for once.
08:22Mina reveals that she's technically a good singer, despite having literally no experience singing.
08:28So this is pure luck.
08:31There is no emotion in her singing because she's usually unemotional.
08:35I'm usually unemotional. That doesn't mean I can't be emotional when singing.
08:40Mina again apologizes for betraying her and advises her to write her own song while she has her hand on her shoulder.
08:47I can't get enough of her being nice to Nicole.
08:50I just wish important stuff was happening.
08:53Instead, a page is wasted until Mina comforts her and then predictably encourages her to perform with her.
08:59I get to see her use her nanite powers of creation, so that's cool, but doesn't amount to anything.
09:05The story ends with Jeffrey still having red eyes because it took place before Jeffrey got control of his body back.
09:13So why didn't Bonnie come back in this issue?
09:16It had no problem relegating Antoine's waking up to the last page of a story like it was nothing,
09:22so why not show her flying towards the city in that story too at that rate?
09:27It ends without any of the stuff people come to Sonic for happening in it.
09:32The first story was by Calvin Sky and Gentleman X,
09:37and was about the council deciding to let the secret freedom fighters go with a slap on the wrist.
09:43Though the very fact that they even considered punishing them for helping against someone who brainwashed his way into power is unacceptable.
09:51And a lot of boring padding happens in terms of plot progression until Antoine wakes up.
09:57At least it resolves a few plot threads.
10:00But again, I'm complimenting it on something a story is supposed to do.
10:05That's only legitimate in a summary if it's a major compliment.
10:09It was boring.
10:11You come to Sonic for cool content or action.
10:15Why wasn't there at least a little chunk of it where a fight happened?
10:20Even Sonic Boom knew to have a token fight scene in nearly every story.
10:25Well this is only going to matter to people who are already invested in a past continuity in characters like me.
10:31It's not a standout story on its own.
10:34I already knew Sally was upset.
10:37And while it's fine to draw her like that until a realistic amount of time has passed,
10:42there's no reason to waste any more of our time with her complaining,
10:46and the pacing should have been faster.
10:48The second story by Calvin Sky is some fluff where Mina's nice to Nicole,
10:53encouraging her to sing to express her feelings.
10:56And...
10:58Why wasn't the page space used in the first story?
11:01Then it could have had space to show Bunny coming back to the city,
11:04showing plot progression instead of wasting valuable space
11:08on a comic with dozens of dangling plot threads making fans impatient.
11:13This isn't STC Online.
11:15With a comic like this, you can't tell just any story.
11:18That's irresponsible.
11:20I don't see why they couldn't have removed the padding
11:23and put the end of the planned follow-up at the end of this story
11:27instead of making this a two-parter to waste even more space.
11:31I already saw Mina be nice to Nicole.
11:34There's only two panels that are new here.
11:36Anything new justifies a story as long as it isn't a bad experience,
11:41and this wasn't a bad experience.
11:43I was just baffled at the existence of a story taking place in the past
11:48when there's interesting plot threads to resolve.
11:51Someone should give the writers of this comic a Harvest Moon game
11:54to teach them how to prioritize things.