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Issue 126:
We start out with Sonic wasting a few panels unconscious with textboxes giving pointless recap, until the sleeping Sonic is bathed by an eerie light, and sucked up a tractor beam, by what at first I thought was a giant spider alien, but it turns out is apparently just a vessel instead. Who would ever design a vessel like this to have EIGHT LEGS or six or whatever?! It doesn’t make sense that they’d make something that’d be so much more complicated to move, when they could just give it wheels!
When Sonic wakes up, he asks groggily if this is heaven even though he’s surrounded by scary ant people, so I have to wonder why he took more than a second to get worried and run out of there! He then freaks out at a loud noise, and then sees some giant insect-like monsters making the ant people freak out.
He finally finds an exit, to the vessel I guess, and I’m really surprised at how Sonic responded to seeing the ant people being attacked with, “ Not my problem! “ I mean he IS supposed to be an Anti-Hero but up to THIS point in the comic we’ve seen Sonic portrayed as the kind of hero who’d save ANYONE, including the freaking NERBS, the most unlikable group of people he’s ever SEEN! So apparently he’d rather save a group of racists who speak his language than some perfectly fine ant people who don’t. Does he think he can’t beat these monsters? Isn’t he supposed to be overconfident?
Instead he only cares about trying to figure out where he is which I can imagine he’d only figure out after running ALL over the surface of the planet, and finding that he’s not on Mobius anymore, since he can’t exactly talk to someone and learn where he is. I still don’t understand how he was brought to some random alien planet instead of killed by the way!…
Surprisingly, Sonic decides pretty quickly that what he’s doing is pointless, thinking, “ Oh, who am I kidding? “ and decides to stop resisting the urge and attack the monsters with his spindash and Spin Jump.
Then an ant person actually speaks to him telepathically, which I can tell from his head glowing golden and the text appearing, and he thanks him in English. I can buy this just fine because we’ve already seen a group of ant people who can speak telepathically transmitting their thoughts through antennas, the Fire Ant Mobians who we haven’t seen in a while.
I’m gonna assume that they’re not REALLY speaking English and are just fooling Sonic’s brain into thinking they are, by altering his brain waves to make his brain simulate the experience of being spoken English to. Like for example if they say their word for rose, Sonic will think of a rose, because otherwise, I’d really have to ask how these people speak English.
One of them simply explains, “ We accessed your thoughts to learn your language, “ which is good enough for me, I guess? And Sonic is a little awkward smiling while being carried to their city which makes him look relatable in this situation! I’d be nervous too! Sonic is really lucky these guys have a method of speaking English, ‘cause otherwise he’d be completely screwed!
Sonic is told by the government of the ant people, the Blodex people, that he’s on Thoraxia. Neither of those names really relate to insects or ants, but anyways. Unfortunately the Blodex are incapable of space travel. OR air travel.
Their mortal enemies, unimaginatively called the Bzzz, believe that they are the only ones entitled to flight, or even life. So I guess that explains the lack of flight vehicles from them. They’d all be destroyed anyways! Sonic is told that an alien trading vessel will arrive here tomorrow which might let Sonic get home. Wait, why doesn’t THAT get destroyed? THAT’S a flying vehicle…
We then see Sonic getting treated as a guest, being given a tour of the city! These guys are so friendly! I’d expect them to be all mean to him for being of a different species, or assume he’s a monster or something, but instead they’re so polite to him, probably because he saved some of their kind earlier. And that trading vessel was mentioned to be from another species entirely. So maybe these guys are used to seeing other species and have a broader definition of people now like the people in Futurama.
Sonic notices that the statue of the Bo-Boldex-I mean Blodex’s ancient champion, looks like he’s holding Chaos Emeralds and he’s shocked to see that they’re red instead of green. This seems to be when it’s finally explained in the comic continuity that creatively enough, Chaos Emeralds are colored differently depending on the world they’re in.
So wouldn’t that mean that there would only be as many sets of Chaos Emeralds as there are discernibly different colors? Like there’d be a pink Emerald world and a light red Emerald world and then a dark red Emerald world. Either way there’d be a very limited amount of worlds with Chaos Emeralds which is fine because they’re such magical Cosmic Keystones anyways.
And I’m fine with them existing on every planet or multiple planets, because logically, what is the likelihood of them ONLY existing on the planet relevant to the comic’s stories? That sounds overly convenient and fictiony! Mobius is already special as it is. I wonder if Sonic’s planning on getting some Chaos Emeralds to teleport home with Chaos Control. Did he learn how to do it from Shadow in THIS continuity TOO?…
He’s told that the Chaos Emeralds fell from the sky and gave the Blodex’s ancient champion the power to destroy the ancient Bzz queen. Somehow I’m expected to believe that for thousands of years they were safe, but NOW all of a sudden the Bzz are back! WHY?!
The only reason they’d be safe, is if the only queen of the Bzz people was killed off somehow BEING the only queen in an entire intelligent race of people, but if THAT was the case, why didn’t the entire race go extinct for good since bees need queens around for reproduction purposes? And if that’s NOT the case, why would the destruction of ONE queen cause the Bzz to go hide for thousands of years just to COME BACK?!
Sonic is pressured to stay on Thoraxia and be their new defender, which of course he isn’t too fond of because he wants to go home. I guess while the Blodex can sent messages telepathically, they can’t read minds – yes they can, they accessed his thoughts to learn his language! So I guess the ant he’s talking to is just being polite by pretending he didn’t read his mind to learn his “ sorry “ response.
After Sonic finally lampshades why the hell he was brought here instead of killed anyways, instead of the writer bothering to answer that since even he knew it was arbitrary, some Bzz people show up for an attack, and the queen of them was brought along to make sure the job was done right. Why the hell would they put their only royal figure at risk like that?!
Why would that make sure of ANYTHING, is she the most powerful one? Is that why she’s being led into battle? She DOES look pretty big. It doesn’t change the fact that from what I’ve been told the death of one queen puts the entire race into hiding for thousands of years, so why are they risking it AGAIN?!
Then after Sonic worries about being outnumbered even though he SHOULD be able to just move at super speed and defeat every enemy in sight in seconds anyways, it’s explained that the queen’s stinger can actually shoot toxin that can melt through any substance. Well it IS an ALIEN bee after all. And it makes sense to me.
By the way, is Sonic gonna be all squeamish about killing these things just because they’re organic sentient beings? If so then he’ll make a TERRIBLE defender for this planet. He’d also have a hard time if he was the protagonist of a Mario game because all of the enemies in those games are living beings and a pacifist run can only get you so far, especially if you have to jump on and kill Paratroopers to badnik bounce far enough to progress.
Then it’s revealed, as I suspected, the Chaos Emeralds being held by the statue of the ancient champion are NOT JUST a part of the statue for decoration, but actually ARE real Chaos Emeralds, which lets Sonic transform into Super Sonic from quite a distance just because he wants to, ‘cause I guess they were feeling generous that day.
Maybe they have a more generous activation distance. But why is he able to turn super with just six of them? Is this particular set of Emeralds arbitrarily more powerful? I guess so, he can activate them from further away after all! Also why is Sonic the only one here who goes super with the Emeralds? Logically speaking why couldn’t it have been any of the other people here who went Super too?
And good, it looks like Sonic has no problem with killing the Bzz people after all! So he’s perfectly fine with murdering his enemies as long as they look like ugly insects. I’m fine with that, he is an Anti-Hero after all! And he’s perfectly justified in doing this. At first I was expecting the queen to give him a real challenge, but no, she goes down just as easily as the rest. She could’ve gone super with the Emeralds HERSELF.
TWO SONICS?!… Why is there a separate Super Sonic from Sonic, what is this, the Fleetway Comic? This has never happened before! I did hear about this, though. And I was worried about seeing “ end of part 1 “ in a text blurb but thank god they don’t end the issue on a cliffhanger like that!
Instead Sonic deduces that instead of transforming him into Super Sonic the way other Chaos Emeralds do, the red Chaos Emeralds have manifested him as a separate being. That’s pretty interesting! I love that the writer cared enough to differentiate them like that! It would’ve been lazy otherwise.
Sonic then inexplicably says that this can’t be good, and he turns out to be right as Super Sonic immediately goes on a destructive rampage for no good reason, implying that this particular set of blood red Chaos Emeralds must be evil and malevolent, since they don’t just fuse Super Sonic with Sonic again after he’s done carrying out Sonic’s will.
So is Sonic gonna get blamed for all this destruction and turned on, even though he’ll clearly be seen helping out civilians separate from Super Sonic? Why is Super Sonic so evil anyways, it’s so inexplicable! Archie Sonic in particular is so blandly nice that it’s harder to believe he’d have an inner love of destruction manifested like this just because he likes destroying robots.
After Sonic helps get some Blodex out from under something, he’s told by the Super Sonic that there’s no good or evil, only power, so this is a separate version of Sonic gone mad with power like Metal Sonic was before he was convinced he was wrong in the volcano story arc. I don’t see why magic power would inherently make you go THAT EVIL though! I mean why would it brainwash you like that to have a completely different personality? Sonic snarks, “ What a grouch, “ after dodging his laser, which is kinda funny because it’s such a jarringly TAME response to that!
And the Super Sonic is so desperate to exploit his power just for the sake of taking advantage of it, that he’ll try to destroy some moons of Thoraxia to jumpstart global chaos! After I read Sonic the Comic, I can’t help but appreciate seeing this as an unintentional nostalgic throwback to Fleetway Super Sonic, because this is EXACTLY the kind of thing he’d do!
Sonic fortunately tackles him to keep him from hitting EITHER of the moons that are so close together that I have to wonder why they didn’t crash into each other from their own mutual gravity, and Sonic gets beaten up briefly before Super disappears as some text blurbs reveal that much like on Mobius, Super Sonic’s existence is only temporary. This makes much more sense than in Fleetway. If he was IDW Sonic he wouldn’t be cheerfully saying goodbye when this guy vanishes, but this is actually relatable.
Sonic is happy about this logically, and says, “ That’s a side of me I never wanna face again! “ Yeesh, talk about harsh in hindsight, considering he’ll have to face Super Scourge much later. And with that, the issue ends, right when I’m most invested in it.
This issue was written by Karl Bollers, and I was pleasantly surprised honestly! It was a pretty interesting story! So has the evil Super Sonic completely killed off all the Bzz and rendered them extinct? Good, they were genocidal anyways, like The Shark were. Well it IS explained why Sonic was fine with killing living beings like this because it wasn’t Sonic at all, but instead a separate being manifested because the red Chaos Emeralds work differently. It’s interesting that they can do this when there’s only six of them.
It’s also interesting that Super Sonic isn’t just carrying out Sonic’s will when he appears like an extension of him, but it’s confusing because the whole reason he was made was in a response to Sonic’s desire to HELP the Blodex people! Wouldn’t this Super Sonic be given the same motivation? He created Super with the POSITIVE power of the Chaos Emeralds! Instead he’s totally insane and obsessed with using his power for the sake of it! It’s kinda arbitrary since Sonic in this comic is so boringly nice.
But I like how accepting and nice the Blodex people are of Sonic despite being a separate species! And I actually really like how this is an entire arc of just Sonic having stories to himself! Like a “ Sonic “ Miniseries for a change only it’s just Sonic like you would expect it to be unlike in Sonic’s Quest. It was a pleasant surprise!
It IS weird seeing aliens so prominent in something Sonic-related, considering that Sonic isn’t normally THAT sci-fi, but I can accept it just fine in a series with a world where a talking hedgehog and some humans all live together. I mean, why wouldn’t there be aliens too? Aliens are just one more separate species of people than usual, who just happen to live on a separate planet in the same universe.
Considering the endless creative potential of this kinda arc, I kinda wish there was another one like that. Imagine if there was an entire Sonic show or comic like this. I don’t know if Thoraxia was a pop culture reference to something, it didn’t seem to be to me, so it seemed to be original enough and that’s what I want to see in stories about other planets and universes.
Plus I can sympathize with the writer for wanting to write something different from what he normally does for a change of pace and try something new. Not to mention we’ve had aliens in Sonic since the beginning, I mean, Marble Zone originally had UFOs in the sky in its prototype design! They had to have been put there for a reason! (Not to mention Aosth had three episodes with aliens in it, and different ones every time.) So yeah, I loved this story, it was pretty engaging!
Go here for a review of the second story in the issue.
Issue 127:
We start out with Sonic in a space shuttle shaking hands with an alien saying that the Blodex ant people said once he was on board, he’d be given an implant that could translate all intergalactic lingo. So is he gonna always have that in him from now on?
I guess not since he puts it in his ear, so it’s not like it’s in his skull or anything. It shouldn’t be called an implant, then, if it’s not an implant. I like that these guys are nice to him too! Sonic seems so relatable, I fully sympathize with his awkwardness here.
Unfortunately the 81st “ orb “ near the system’s “ tri-star, “ explodes near the spaceship creating a light that you’d think would blind everyone! I guess it’s customary for them to say “ orb “ in space situations rather than saying planet or moon or whatever because they are in space so much that they don’t always wanna be specific, but tri-star? What’s that?! Can’t they just say “ three suns “ if that’s what they mean? So did a villain explode it?
This explosion sends forth a massive “ anti-wave, “ whatever that means, of space debris in all directions. Why’s it called an anti-wave if it’s not about antimatter since it’s just space debris?! And thus would be matter?
So yeah, this random explosion caused the space shuttle to be randomly damaged by debris in a Diabolus ex Machina. Sonic just can’t catch a break, can he? The writer just had to have this happen to delay him getting home. (Though it’s worth it.)
Everyone gets into bio-pods that are designed to automatically seek out habitable planets and naturally the crew runs into the problem where there’s two people but only one escape pod left, that can only hold one person, because they never accounted for an extra sentient being aboard. That’s pretty bullshit because even regular SHIPS have a tendency to include extra life boats just in case!
Sonic stupidly refuses to get inside the pod just because it’ll kill someone else, completely ignoring the fact that as a powerful hero, his life’s more valuable. Fortunately he gets paralyzed by Owi’s stinger though, and put it in the escape pod by him. If all of his species can do that at will, wouldn’t that be abused for sinister reasons by the more evil among them?
So instead of making Sonic look like an anti-hero, he has to be physically forced to allow someone to sacrifice himself for him. This is a good way of making it work out. I really LIKE these guys, I mean as out of place as they look for a Sonic comic, since they’re such generic aliens, I love that they just met Sonic, and ALREADY one of them is willing to sacrifice his life for him!
Sonic thinks, ” Goodbye, “Captain Oe. Goodbye, ” and sheds a tear, showing that he truly respects him and his sacrifice and is sad about it. Fortunately for Sonic his paralysis is very temporary as he’s able to move again as the pod is heading for a planet with thick clouds and rain, causing Sonic to complain that he can’t see a thing and he hates rain.
Then the escape pod warns Sonic that he shouldn’t exit because the atmosphere is highly toxic. Wait a minute, is Sonic able to understand this warning with his translator implant? He has to because there’s no way the warning would actually be in English when the pod wasn’t meant for him. And it’s initiating a distress signal.
I like that Sonic lampshades the fact that the escape pod specifically designed to take him to a habitable planet didn’t do so! But at least it’s TRYING to help him. Maybe it’s just the closest planet it could find and there ARE no other habitable planets close to it. It’s only got so much fuel, after all.
Sonic shows gratitude that there’s still food in a rations bin and enough to last him weeks. Sonic leaves the pod because it tells him that the atmosphere is habitable and he wants to explore. And Sonic finds himself in a desert surrounded by puddles. So is this the same planet?! Does the planet become uninhabitable when it rains and then suddenly becomes healthy again? Is it really bad acid rain that poisons the planet then? No WONDER it’s a desert!
Sonic shows some subtle homesickness by noting that the pink water reminds him of his mom’s lemonade, which we never got to see sadly. Why does he assume it’s water? Or maybe he’s just thinking of it as “ water “ as a synonym for liquid.
He then notices some growing microbes in the water that suddenly form themselves into a tree right in front of him! And now its leaves are falling off as it’s going from autumn to winter in seconds, leaving the pink sea totally frozen over and then it melts. This is SOME magical planet! I’m loving this honestly, this is fascinating! Not only are there actually some pretty cool interesting planets that scientists have discovered in real life, but add magic to that and it makes it even cooler! Plus Sonic is a really relatable audience surrogate here.
Then Sonic notices a frog emerging from the depths, and is confused about that since the planet couldn’t even support life 8 hours ago. This is reminding me of that episode of Futurama where they put nanobots on a planet and they formed into an entire planet’s worth of robotic beings similar to our own, mimicking a sped-up version of OUR planet’s evolutionary history within DAYS. But here we have magic instead of robots justifying it, or at least I can only assume it’s magic.
After there’s suddenly snow again, Sonic has his mind blown at the idea that evolution on this planet is taking place at an accelerated rate, which would only happen if the planet was bathed in radiation to create evolutionary mutations a lot faster, and even then wouldn’t Sonic be negatively affected by it? It’s not just radiation, because the WATER got frozen over in the winter and then melted, so it’s clearly time itself that’s faster.
And that’d only make sense if some magical artifact altered this planet for some reason, like one stolen from a wizard drugged at a party, used on this planet to get a mad scientist whose inter-zone portal generator got destroyed quick access to a new one by getting a new advanced society formed for him nearby. Wouldn’t it be cool if another version of Rotor or Chuck was responsible for this?
Sonic decides that the safest thing to do is hide in the bio-pod because there’s no telling what would happen next. That’s pretty smart of him!… Is the pod gonna be attacked by a giant animal? I dunno, I just had that feeling.
An hour later, Sonic opens the door of the pod for some reason and sees some huts across from him, and while Sonic is saying, “ blowing my mind, “ there’s a cool effect where the village is already advancing to a futuristic metropolis as we speak! Oh thank god, for some weird reason, time is now slowing down to a pace he can deal with, because if it kept going fast there’d be trouble. Like maybe “ the end of the world “ trouble. Is the explosion that caused this whole mess ever gonna be explained? I guess not.
Sonic then wonders why a hedgehog-shaped symbol is part of the architectural design, when you’d think he’d just come to the conclusion that these are a race of hedgehog people, at least, it would make sense.
Some coincidence that they’re blue like HIM, unless as the alien calling him a wondrous blue-spined immortal is implying, the emblem was made because Sonic is considered like a god over there. Again, just like with Farnsworth, the creator of the robot planet in Futurama!
Sonic then thinks that he can understand the people’s language because of his implant, but that’s pretty confusing because these people literally just came into existence! Why would the implant be programmed with the translation for their language in mind? Unless it works by reading minds and thus translating like THAT. That would be able to translate literally ANY language. That’d mean he should be able to understand Antoine’s French after this point.
Anyways, Sonic is told that the three-eyed aliens in front of him are scientists who created a device to slow down the speed of time on this world. With SCIENCE? I could understand them using Chaos Emeralds to do it, but just SCIENCE? This would’ve been the perfect time to introduce some variation of the Time Stones, or at least show us another set of Chaos Emeralds, but no, it’s just science!
Sonic has a nice line where he’s all wide-eyed and shocked and says, “ Time out! For the first time in my life I feel as if someone is going too fast for me! “ Again, he’s being a fantastic Audience Surrogate here! He asks awkwardly, “ Uh, question: WHY does your city look like it was modeled after ME? “
He’s told that back at the dawn of the planet’s civilization, the Azurites’ early people discovered Sonic’s pod. I like the Azurite name by the way, it makes sense since they worship a blue person, “ Azure. “ And because he moved at such a comparatively slow rate compared to them, he appeared like a statue to them, because they couldn’t comprehend what he really was, they worshipped him believing him to be responsible for their fates.
Thank god they decided to worship him instead of going in the opposite direction and assuming he was a demon that should be destroyed, because they could’ve just as easily gone to THAT conclusion. You’d think some of them would think he was an omen of bad luck that would blow up at the end of the world since THAT would have just as little evidence for it and the worshipers would have to defend Sonic.
For some reason technological scans of Sonic’s capsule, seemed to reveal that he was a living god. Hopefully they’re not supposed to mean “ literally “ and instead that he ages slower which would appear godlike to THEM. But anyways many of the Azurites were OPPOSED to the idea that he was a living god and waged war because of it, preferring to think of him as just an idol statue. The facts eventually prevailed but the Azurites could find no means of opening the capsule.
So the whole reason time was slowed down was so that Sonic could meet his so-called creations… Wait, actually it would make sense that he created them unintentionally if he brought microbes with him! But I assumed they were ALWAYS there… I mean, by the time Sonic went up to the pink lemonade, it already had microbes in them.
Anyways after Sonic meets his creations, I love how awkward and relatable he is making a speech! He’s not an egotistical megalomaniac embracing being worshipped, like Eggman would be. Instead he acts like a normal person going to interact with them in a more normal way! He says, “ Well, uh, first thing is… I’m not a god, and I didn’t create you, either. I got space-wrecked here a long, long time ago… and because of the differences in our evolutionary rate, you dudes mistook me for something that I’m not. “
I doubt the Azurites would be that willing to accept the truth from him no matter WHO he is, which would be frustrating. I guess he’s only saying “ long, long time ago “ for THEIR benefit because it’s just a few days for HIM, or even just ONE day.
Fortunately instead of a riot being caused by him saying he’s not a god he’s told by a friendly Azurite that they could possibly construct a vessel to bring him back HOME. That’s SO nice of him! These aliens are SO NICE!
And this time it makes perfect sense, as the Azurites wanna thank Sonic for creating him, even though he just said he didn’t. But I guess they all assume he’s mistaken and he created them by accident, and they’re just way too polite to correct their “ god. “ It’s a good thing he happened to coincidentally land on a planet that could get him a vessel like that eventually, that was pretty convenient.
He’s told that the vessel won’t take years to build from HIS perspective if they temporarily switch off the temporal decelerator, and with that, Sonic has his personal spaceship being built around him – even underneath his own feet somehow – bringing him one step closer to Mobius!
I’m surprised that the people of this planet didn’t ask him a million questions about himself and his world! I mean, they just let him go off on the spaceship… without any questions at all, I mean, they WORSHIPED him for their entire civilization’s history, you’d think they would ask him about his LIFE, but instead he just leaves, right away. That was convenient.
So, that was the issue! It was written by Bollers and I really enjoyed it! It reminded me of the Futurama episode with the robot planet, so I love seeing this concept, but in the Sonic universe! I also loved how Sonic was a very relatable Audience Surrogate to the madness, being kind of awkward and careful about strange aliens and not wanting to be called a god.
It wasn’t perfect though, there were a few plot holes. The whole reason this story happened was because of an explosion damaging the space shuttle Sonic was in. But it’s never properly explained why that explosion happened. Planets don’t just randomly blow up for no reason! It felt like it just happened to delay Sonic for no reason!
But the story was worth it honestly! I loved how polite and willing to help all of these aliens were with one of them who just met Sonic, already willing to sacrifice his life for him! And the Azurites are nice enough to help Sonic go home instead of getting mad at him and not believing him when he says he’s not a god and didn’t create them.
THAT amount of niceness EASILY makes up for the fact that they’re too on the sci-fi side of things for Sonic. But again, plot holes, I’m left to just ASSUME the planet has faster time from an overflow of magic on it! What caused it to become time accelerated? Was it just created when Sonic landed on it? At least when Futurama did it, it EXPLAINED the faster evolutionary rate as, “ robots do everything faster! “
But the story makes up for that by, one, taking place in a magic-filled universe so we can just assume it’s magic, and two they put a neat twist at the end, where instead of the people there evolving into glowing floating gas that communicate telepathically, since that’s supposedly the next evolutionary step for humanity, instead the accelerated time thing is STOPPED by the people THEMSELVES.
And then that machine is taken advantage of as a Chekhov’s Gun to send Sonic home which surprised me again! What can I say, overly sci-fi or not I was really blown away by this story, and there’s a lot about it that I like! I even like the fact that Sonic’s the only Sonic character that appeared in it, because like last issue, it’s nice to see him in a solo story for once! It’s like a breather story or something.
Go here for my review of the second story.
Issue 128:
Sonic is in the Azurite spaceship on his way to a technologically advanced world that might be able to get him home. But according to his onboard visual display there’s nothing but asteroids, which fortunately for Sonic he’s able to avoid by steering the spaceship thinking to himself that all those sleepless nights playing Sega game consoles might have paid off. That’s a charming kinda relatable line.
Unfortunately Sonic gets a message that his ship is flying in a ” hostile ” zone and he has to dock it at once. That was just a lame excuse for him to have to meet Commander Bagbar. Sonic then meets a hideous-looking commander that looks like some kind of imp, with some other members of his crew ALSO looking rather gremlin-like. I’m not sure I trust these people not to be bad guys later.
Sonic explains his situation and is told that unfortunately the planet he was heading to was torn into an asteroid field three hours ago by EVE, who their fleet is sworn to destroy. People like to say there were a million dropped plot threads that Ian Flynn picked up but while there ARE SOME of those, I like to point out every instance of a plot thread being picked up before him that I can. And this is a prime example, because I’m surprised to hear about EVE again THAT quickly.
Wait, did Sonic ever learn what EVE’s acronym stood for, does this make sense? Oh okay, EVE told him what her name stood for when she became an Eldritch Abomination. But the fact that even I forgot what it stood for makes it hard to believe that SONIC would remember what it stood for, after hearing it JUST ONCE.
After some recap about what EVE is, Sonic is then blamed for EVE savagely destroying all those industrialized worlds after going into space, even though he didn’t have any choice because if he HADN’T gave her the speech that caused her to go to space, EVE would’ve killed him and caused a lot of destruction ANYWAYS. Why is she doing all of this? She seems like such an arbitrary villain. Well, it is good writing that Sonic’s being called out on for the dire consequences of his actions for once because when Mobotropolis was taken over again thanks to his absence, he got knighted for it!
Sonic runs back to his ship in fear from the angry people being called a coward, with them not being the least bit grateful for someone so fast not attacking him or commenting on his super speed in the slightest.
And Sonic goes into his spaceship wasting some MORE time on recap about EVE that we already got told about in this very issue, and his spaceship’s computer pinpoints the nearest planet that Sonic could potentially save.
It turns out this planet is one where four generations ago, the Eco-Tech people made a utopian society with nature and technology coexisting just fine, even being free of death, so naturally I’m assuming it’ll get destroyed. Yep! EVE strips the planet of all its metals and fifteen minutes pass before only rock remains.
Naturally Sonic lampshades in anguish that EVE did this in the first place and blames himself for the world’s destruction even though it’s not HIS fault the spaceship’s not fast enough. It is a good character moment that he’s heroic and responsible enough to feel guilty that an entire world was destroyed on his watch, though.
Then we see EVE just shrugging off laser blasts from the spaceship that was chasing after Sonic. And the entire fleet of warships gets torn apart by a tractor beam… This upsets Sonic too even though those people were out to imprison him for life at best for something he was basically forced to do.
Then a textbox says that what happens next is unimaginable even though it really isn’t, it’s common sense that Sonic would attack EVE with the spaceship. though not common sense for him to try to ram her with it. I suppose with his huge amount of stress and guilt right now, it’s believable that he’d take this risk to try to kill EVE.
To his surprise, it passes right through the hull, letting him go inside wearing a spacesuit to protect himself that makes him look like an alien species. Sonic tells EVE that what she’s doing is wrong, and that he’s here to shut her down before she’d destroy any more worlds with people in them.
EVE emotionlessly tells him that he has no chance of saving the next world from incorporation, which she puts in sarcastic quotes for some reason even though it’s supposed to be her justification for DOING all this that she believes in! I’ve said “ even though “ a LOT in this issue.
At least Sonic lampshades, ” You were supposed to EXCEED your programming, go onto greater things! What happened? ” She was written by a different writer that’s what happened. At least it’s not technically a Derailment because it makes sense she’d turn out like this, as we’ll see.
Sonic is then completely shocked at seeing what apparently is Sally in a red spacesuit of her own, and SOMEHOW he recognizes her on sight just as she recognizes him, which is weird because they both look unrecognizable in those suits. And there’s plenty of voices in the world, some of them are bound to sound similar. So why would either of them assume it’s the same person they know just because of a similar voice?
Either way they both have a heartwarming and adorable hug as I wonder if this isn’t the real Sally since there’s no reason she should be here, or even know that Sonic’s still alive to look for him in space to begin with.
They then bump helmets by accident which is a nice touch of Reality Ensues, and show cute awkwardness about it, and then Sally says she’ll explain how she found Sonic once she gets to the wormhole that brought her there because they have to go NOW before it would CLOSE, or else they’d NEVER get home!
I hope that’s a wormhole meant to take Sonic back to Mobius and not actually a trap. If he did go in there the arc would end after this issue. I’m surprised because there’s no reason she can’t just explain everything to Sonic WHILE they’re heading to the wormhole, right?
Sonic refuses to go with her until EVE’s been stopped, naturally since she plans to destroy another planet, as he’s a hero, and the so-called Sally immediately makes me suspicious because she says, “ That’s illogical! “ and tells him he’d lose his means of getting home and Sally with it… I HAVE to wonder if this is actually fooling Sonic with a fake Sally created from his memories that she obtained by scanning him Nicole-style.
Sonic shares the suspicion too as he says that the Sally he knows would be more heroic and wouldn’t mind being stranded in another galaxy as long as she was with him. And it looks like I was right! But this “ subterfuge, “ – I dunno why the writer can’t just use a word people can understand – has served as a distraction to delay Sonic so that her sentries could arrive, which Sonic destroys with a kick and spindash as he floats with his spacesuit.
He thinks that he must be getting closer because EVE’s doing everything she can to stop him, and goes through a very bright light at the end of a tunnel to meet at the very least a more acceptable-looking design in her CPU area. I mean at least she’s not an Eldritch Abomination this time.
EVE explains that no matter where she went in this universe to have a happy fulfilling life like Sonic suggested, she was met with fear and violence. With the way she looked, what did she expect? She should’ve changed her appearance to look more friendly! Metamorphia did with just as little exposure to other people’s beauty standards! Her being mistreated is arbitrary as a result because she was just being an idiot instead of transforming, when she’s a shapeshifting robot.
But I guess the thought that she was being mistreated just because of her looks didn’t occur to her through her sheer lack of experience with the world, since nobody would’ve explained to her what the problem was. But shouldn’t it have been obvious that she looked menacing, wasn’t that the whole reason she transformed into that more menacing form to intimidate Robotnik? How’d she even survive that interstellar weapon if it nearly destroyed her?
She was feared everywhere she met and interstellar weapons nearly killed her, explaining why she became a villain, but she adapted and evolved and throughout the cosmos she sensed sentient computers – SOMEHOW, the whole plot is contrived – and thought that it would be right to liberate them from their organic masters. So THAT’S why she’s robbing the worlds of metal! Even if it means destroying them.
She’s liberating robots at all costs! Does she reprogram them afterwards to not still wanna be loyal to their masters and continue carrying out their orders? Or does she mean only sentient computers get freed, because if she’s stealing ALL metal, then there’s gonna be a lot more than just sentient robots that get sent to her! Sonic tells her angrily that she has no right to destroy planets just because they create artificial intelligence, and EVE explains that she doesn’t and the act of incorporating their tech into her shell has given rise to a higher organism.
Sonic then argues that she’s being selfish, as, “ Yeah, but instead of serving everyone else, now they just listen to you! “ I like that line. EVE looks sad and replies, “ Your logic proves that I am no better than the oppressor. My mission is flawed. It must therefore be terminated. “ You mean “ oppressorS. “ I love this kind of flawlessly logical way of thinking actually letting her listen to reason! It’s pretty interesting for a character, and we don’t get to see that with Nicole.
And she doesn’t feel guilty since she’s emotionless – unless the sad expression means that. But she should’ve looked sad in the panel afterwards too. And she felt compassion, didn’t she? That’s why she turned on Robotnik in the first place because she was slightly made from Sonic’s DNA giving her his heart, and she even said so.
Either way she explains that the key to Sonic returning home lies on the Bem homeworld, Wheelworld. Wait, how would she know that at all? She doesn’t thoroughly explore planets and get to know them, she only knows if they have sentient computers and when she finds them she immediately destroys the whole planet! So Sonic even going to Wheelworld knowing where to go is contrived.
I like that we’re FINALLY visiting the home world of the Bem, those aliens that made Eggman human, rather than forever having them be just a Big Lipped Alligator Moment that never gets elaborated on. And it makes sense that EVE would know what Sonic wants to do because he got his memories for creating a fake Sally.
She for some reason then gives Sonic a short countdown before she’d change her path for the nearest star from subtle guilt, forcing Sonic to run to his destination, when she could’ve just given him some more time.
I didn’t get that she was killing herself from the guilt of destroying planets at first because it was so subtle and downplayed. and if she was okay with destroying planets in the first place, it wasn’t easy to believe that she could regret it. Sonic never tried to talk her out of it at ALL, kinda uncharacteristically, because he was already put on a time limit to escape.
This issue was by Karl Bollers and picks up a plot thread that’s been loose ever since literally the first issue Ken Penders ever wrote all by his lonesome, FINALLY telling us what EVE’s been up to. It gives her a surprisingly logical motive as a villain! It makes perfect sense that she’d become one because not only did she have a scary appearance that would naturally make everyone afraid of her, but she’s also an AI who escaped from Robotnik’s grasp, so she’d naturally want to liberate all the robots she can find out of sympathy for them, for THEM as opposed to the rest of the people on the planets that she destroyed by robbing them of their metals with absolutely no remorse, because hey, she’s a robot, she works purely on logic, it makes sense.
And for some reason she had no problem going into a star and DESTROYING all of the robots she just liberated with no indication that she freed them from herself at all. Way to make things right, EVE. It also makes sense that Sonic was hated and chased down by the aliens in this issue because if he hadn’t convinced EVE to seek out her own destiny, plenty of industrialized planets and innocent people wouldn’t have been destroyed.
That wasn’t his fault of course, he had no choice but to convince her of that because otherwise she’d destroy his OWN planet and go off to do that stuff ANYWAYS. But I can understand the aliens being too angry with him to care about that. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous issues in space, but it was kinda well-written in the character motivations and I also liked the concept of EVE making a fake Sally out of his memories, and trying to lure him away from her.
And at the end, Sonic actually convinces her that she’s enslaving robots HERSELF no better than the oppressor she hates, and because she works on logic, she’s immediately convinced she’s wrong in one panel like last time she showed up and goes to help Sonic go home, presumably so he wouldn’t stick around complaining all his life. It feels too easy, rather than her stubbornly clinging to her old ways, but for a purely logical machine like her it does make sense, and it’s nicer that she actually realizes she’s wrong, even if she just gets destroyed anyways.
Issue 129:
We start out with narration saying that there’s a lifeless planet with a bubble with a city teaming with life, okay that’s kinda misleading they should’ve said “ ALMOST “ lifeless, then. This IS interesting at least! And in that city are people ready to enjoy one of their favorite pastimes, the galactic space race.
Viewers watch holo-transmissions of the event in excitement as their favorite runners get into position, and all of them are curious about Sonic signing up for the competition. Naturally he wants to show off! His goal’s ALSO to win a prize and keep his ship. Oh so he HAS to do this, as apparently he used his ship as an entry fee, and wants the prize to get his ship REPAIRED. Maybe it was damaged by asteroids? But not enough that he couldn’t land here.
Sonic notices some blatant cheating in the race which I guess is allowed because the audience finds it entertaining, and has to avoid some cheating himself in order to win, including an attack with claws! Unfortunately as I suspected for a plot twist he actually LOSES the race, because one of the racers were faster.
Then, wait, even though this race allows blatant CHEATING in the form of the opponents ATTACKING each other, APPARENTLY a racer using a rocket-booster to win ISN’T allowed. Racers causing each other physical injuries and risking killing them is fine, but one of them being slightly faster is going too far! This arbitrariness allows Sonic to be recognized as the true winner! Wasn’t he supposed to be going to the Bem planet to flesh it out a little more?
Well it turns out he’s JUST NOW going to it, after getting his spaceship repaired from that race. Sonic gets encountered by an Obstructive Bureaucrat saying that the only reason he’d be allowed to visit the Bem planet is if he’ll be attending the trial of Ceneca-9009. Why would they ever be expecting non-Bem people to attend a Bem person’s trial if they’re apparently such isolationists that they forbid visitors to their planet?
This alien should have a list with photos of who’s allowed in the trial and Sonic wouldn’t be on it. No visitors are allowed otherwise because this is an isolationist planet apparently. So I suppose they go to war every time another species comes around? That sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Sonic naturally lies, and he gets led in. It sure is nice of the person to humor him and let him in even though, with his dialogue, there’s no reason for her to actually believe him. He made it so obvious he was lying.
The world has an outer rim of solid bedrock, while its gravity-containing inner tube has oceans and continents, and on a clear day you could look up at the sky and see the other side of the planet! This is really creative, and would probably only work because magic.
I like that Sonic thinks his Uncle Chuck would spend the rest of his life studying this place, and he doubts that anyone would ever see him again if he got his hands on his spaceship because he’s that curious of an intellectual. I guess this means we’re supposed to assume that Sonic destroys this spaceship offscreen, specifically to prevent this from happening.
Can you imagine if Scourge’s Uncle Chuck DID research alien planets because he never had a reason to quit science? And at the same time, he wouldn’t be motivated to use his science to HELP his own planet because he’d be less morally good, so it makes sense that he might go to other ones out of curiosity.
Sonic notices a bunch of aliens of different species together even though this is an isolationist species planet and wonders what Ceneca-9009 did to warrant such a huge turnout. Like Sonic – so he’s a great audience surrogate – I assumed when I first read this that Ceneca-9009 was the PLANET, because naturally it sounds like a stereotypical sci-fi planet name. So Sonic’s a good audience surrogate by assuming the same thing.
Why the hell would anyone give their planet a name with a number in it, or accept their planet being given that name by someone else? And the same question would apply to it being the name of a person. It’s a stupid sci-fi convention that makes no sense, and because of that sci-fi convention, I assumed that Ceneca-9009 was not the person on trial, but a planet. And while it’s weird that a planet would be put on trial, he’s already in an alien world, where other planet’s people can just casually visit it for a trial.
Sonic finds a courthouse and sees someone pleading not guilty to the crime of disobedience against the planet’s high command. I hope he doesn’t get involved trying to waste time defending him because all he needs to worry about is getting HOME, not risking it by pulling a stupid move like THAT.
Sonic wonders if EVERYONE’s named Ceneca on this planet, which would be REALLY STUPID, and we see proof being shown in camera footage of the person being guilty. It constantly annoys me how they talk about time in rotational cycles. Why can’t they just say years? They say ” century ” later!
It was the vessel of the defendant that discovered a smog cloud planet of robot people. It turns out these defendants were stupid enough to think that these robots, or, people with natural metal, had a plight that had to be cured by turning them organic AGAINST their WILL, even though this would obviously kill them by being exposed to the smog, which would probably kill the Bem too! HOW stupid ARE they?
At the very least this does give a proper explanation for why the Bem can deroboticize people so easily. This is when they first made their deroboticizer, labouring for 50 years to do so, so it feels more well-earned. And since they didn’t have a roboticizer already, it kinda makes sense that they’d take so long with a deroboticizer, although it took Chuck way less than 50 years to make his roboticizer, and a deroboticizer that could explode to return tons of people to normal, so, uh, I guess he was way smarter an engineer than the engineers of a super advanced alien planet.
Obviously the entire race of robots perished because their metal skin had evolved as a defense against their own planet’s deadly microbes, as opposed to the smog, so I guess the microbes WERE the smog? This caused deroboticization to be OUTLAWED! WHAT?! As if it’s inherently evil?! WHY wouldn’t it be allowed if it’s obvious that people would really WANT to be deroboticized?! That’s forced of the writing.
At least the aliens in charge here show no indication that they’re aware that roboticization removes free will. For all they know, Robotnik was planning to make Mobius’ atmosphere inhospitable to organic life, and so they assume he was doing this to people to keep them alive.
Then the camera footage shows what happened to Tails’ father, causing Sonic to put his hands over his eyes while thinking sadly, “ I’m SO SORRY, Tails! “ being very sympathetic. Wait a minute, why the HELL is Amadeus looking gray like a generic robot?! This is a serious continuity error by the colorist because the WHOLE reason Rosemary DIDN’T notice that he was a robot when Tails was born, was because he was still his normal color, just all masked up!
So there’s no way this color of his is canon. Here it implies that he only looked his normal color because he was painstakingly painted that way to fool her after which Robotnik wasted resources to remove the paint to make him gray again!
We see Amadeus walk away from some energy field or gas just as Rosemary’s reunited with her spouse to find out he was a robot. This BETTER not be trying to pretend that Amadeus was only turned into a robot right when Rosemary was brought to him by Robotnik, because that’s not what happened! She’s asking Amadeus what’s become of him as if she just saw him get roboticized or was told that this robot would be her husband ahead of time. I hope this attempt at a retcon gets ignored later because this art is being very misleading about what happened back then.
Then we see that before anything could happen to Tails’ mom, his parents were saved by the very person that’s in trouble right now! OK, NOW I get why Sonic would defend them! Their crew was blatantly being HEROES, and these IDIOTS trying to punish them for it, even ACKNOWLEDGING that Robotnik was a ” despot ” roboticizing people against their will!
And they STILL, had the gall to try to punish them for this! WHAT ASSHOLES! It’s pretty convenient that the Bem saw Tails’ parents, specifically, and saved them, when their spaceship seemed to have no business anywhere near Mobius at the time. They could have just as easily decided to save, I dunno, Sonic’s mom, or Chuck.
What’s worse is that their request to deroboticize everyone on Mobius was DENIED by even MORE complete assholes, although to be fair, a world deroboticization at that point wouldn’t actually stop Robotnik from taking over the world, it’d just keep him from roboticizing the people he already tried to roboticize, which would be barely any people at that point, and he’d still overthrow the king.
It is interesting that the textbox says, ” your sister Bem, ” implying that all of the Bem are actually female, which is subtly indicated by their eyelashes, but they’re still bald, so it’s very easy to not notice. Still, this is an extra detail the writer didn’t have to come up with, and it doesn’t do any harm being there.
And the hero was imprisoned for what she did! FINALLY, Sonic snaps, “ Are you jokers KIDDING ME? “ getting everyone’s attention. Hopefully they’ll actually listen to his argument, especially since he’s FROM MOBIUS!
Then Tails’ parents recognize Sonic because they happened to be in the crowd at the time, and they hadn’t seen Sonic since he was four years old. Wait, I thought he was five back then, though that was never stated.
It’s explained that they weren’t allowed to come back home to Mobius because after Ceneca-9009’s imprisonment, ALL Bem vessels, were forbidden from traveling there, because they have no sense of justice. Lawful Stupid Obstructive Bureaucrats are easily the most hateable villains to me. All they do is obstruct justice by sticking to STUPID laws! And that makes them no better than villains! In fact, they’re worse because at least regular villains, we’re used to them and they’re more honest that they’re bad guys with bad guy reputations in cartoons, they’re not considered good guys by anybody!
Wait, if Ceneca-9009 was imprisoned, why would she ever be hired to be part of the crew that deroboticized Eggman, experience or not she still had a criminal record related to what she did in that very same job! Logically it shouldn’t be the same person who saved Tails’ parents who was put on trial for what she’ll be prosecuted for later on, this was just an easy excuse to explain Tails’ parents’ rescue without them having to do it in the middle of a trial. Sonic snaps at them, “ More like you’ve been holding them prisoner here against their will! “
The idiot he’s talking to simply tells him to shut up being too stupid to make a proper rebuttal to what he said and continues with the camera footage revealing that, as I eventually assumed, the same species of green aliens that deroboticized Eggman and Snively, ALSO proceeded to do that to all of Mobius. And are being PUNISHED for it. At least Sonic is just as angry about this as I am. But instead of having a crappy story like this, we could’ve just had an uplifting one where Sonic deroboticized the world himself using portable deroboticizers!
Apparently the people of the Bem government demanded that the Bem crew would prove their case by showing that non-roboticized people were superior, only for Sonic and Tails to win the fight with Eggman and Snively as robots, causing this predicament because the Bem government were TOO STUPID, to realize that being trapped as a robot with no free will, or even WITH it, wouldn’t be considered worth it to someone who doesn’t want to BE that way! Do these people have NO sense of morality at all?!
Sonic says that he could’ve won that fight as his organic self too and is idiotically told, “ Irrelevant! “ Bullshit! He had a good point! He could’ve beat Robo-Robotnik’s mecha and tied him up too if he had rope, and he should’ve pointed out that normal Robians don’t have infra-red vision, net-shooters and lasers, so that test was clearly rigged in the robots’ favour!
The Bem were given a direct order to roboticize all of Mobius for their own good, and did the exact opposite. Then Sonic naturally points out that the defendants did the right thing, saying, “ Mobians aren’t supposed to BE roboticized! “ The camera footage itself CLEARLY shows the people CELEBRATING! How does that not convince them?!
After the HERO is told that he, or rather she, will be executed and naturally says that she regrets nothing, Sonic’s told that the reason no ships are allowed between here and Mobius is that the Xorda declared war on Mobius a while ago. At least that’s an explanation. even if the decision should’ve been reversed a long time ago. Why would an alien planet operate on outdated information for its laws?
Sonic is told by someone that not everyone considers her to have deserved this punishment. If anything, she made up for the tragedy of the robot planet by doing so! HOW does the government that punished her even manage to BREATHE?! I don’t find them to be believable characters at ALL!
Sonic is told that in orbit near the planet is very conveniently an artificial wormhole of Bem design that could take him and Tails’ parents to anywhere in the universe, including Mobius. After Ceneca is rescued with Sonic spindashing through the metal floor of her cell to get to her, they find out that the ship is only big enough for one person because Diabolus ex Machina.
They hear police sirens because someone discovered her empty cell already. And Sonic tells her compassionately that she has everything to lose if she doesn’t take it. A spaceship goes into the wormhole which isn’t followed because the Bem are afraid of the Xorda, even though the Xorda shouldn’t be near Mobius to be feared anymore! Then it’s revealed that SONIC was the one that was piloting the airship, and that was Ceneca’s plan all along!
Also why does Amadeus have that weird glass thing over his eye like a monocle instead of an eyepatch? Either way he says happily to his wife that as long as Sonic gives Tails the package they sent that they conveniently had on them, Tails will always know how much his parents love him.
Just then Sonic sees the Mobian Moon, which like the LAST time we saw it is STILL blown in half, proving that this comic has more respect for even the most basic of continuity than the games do. I say that, but Sonic’s saying “ THE Mobian moon, “ is by itself a stupid retcon because we were told in “ Space in yo Face “ that there were hundreds of Mobian moons, and the whole reason the plot could happen was that the heroes landed their spaceship on Mukury, Mobius’ mud moon.
And Sonic was on that moon. But apparently that story’s non-canon now, which sucks because I loved the concept of tons of different moons for Mobius. I knew it would be retconned eventually. All because SA2 and we gotta have it be as unoriginal as possible, because VIDEO GAMES! Good god this story SUCKS!
And Sonic hopes that he’ll land in the spaceship in one piece. Now I have to wonder how Tails’ parents are going home since they’re still being kept prisoner on Argentium! Considering that they only get to go home when Flynn takes over, it really is disappointing that Sonic didn’t just get to bring them home himself right from the start, just because arbitrarily that ship could only hold one person. Who the hell would make a spaceship that can only fit one person?! Why would those be common enough to have been stumbled into so easily?!
This issue was actually written by TWO people; Romy Chacon for the very short pointless story where Sonic wins a race with a bunch of flagrant cheaters, which was TOTALLY pointless since they could’ve just as easily had Sonic arrive on the Bem planet right away, and had a cheater be punished in a race full of them!
The other story was written by Bollers. It turns out that as I suspected, it was the Bem aliens who deroboticized Mobius. And it turns out they had a very good reason for their experiment with Eggman as they were ordered to do it. While I do appreciate that they had a good explanation for all these lingering plot threads like the disappearance of Tails’ parents, who I’m wondering how they’re going to return home, I found this story REALLY frustrating because the HERO who deroboticized Mobius, being sentenced to execution just made me angry!
This is the worst issue since the Issue 39 arc and Wrath of Khan! Nothing since then has made me so angry just from hearing about it, especially because of the fact that a native of Mobius was explicitly telling everyone in the courthouse, that HE was OPPOSED to being roboticized! What thick-headed idiots would STILL choose to execute her after that?! What absolute bullshit.
I can’t help but feel like if the courthouse decided not to execute her because of what Sonic said, actually acting like how actual PEOPLE would by LISTENING to the Mobian’s reasoning, then I wouldn’t have hated the story as much. After all, we see her outside just fine, there’s no clear indication of what happens to her after Sonic goes through the wormhole, so I think the story would’ve gone the same exact way if she had been pardoned and we just would’ve cut out a jail break scene.
But instead it was very frustrating how stupid the characters were, and if I can’t enjoy it, I can’t say that I like it, and if I can’t say I like it, it’s hard for me to recommend it as a good story. At the very least Sonic’s FINALLY going home now. But if this crappy story was the justification for why the world was deroboticized, it clearly wasn’t worth getting the answer, and it should’ve just been Sonic doing it with portable deroboticizers; “ Deus ex Machina that’s at least a Chekhov’s Gun “ would feel a lot better than this,
I’d gladly take a story that’s forced but happy over a story that’s forced and depressing, that’s easily one of the top 10 worst issues in the entire comic. (It’s right up there with 39 and 197, and ALL of those feature trials against people who don’t deserve it! What do you know, it’s almost like that’s an inherently horrible idea for a story to begin with!)
CrystalMaiden77 