I have never actually had much interest in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Most of my knowledge of platforming games comes from my wife and son and they prefer Mario. However, when I saw that Humble Bundle had a Sonic comic book bundle, I was interested enough to pick it up.
You see, one thing that I do know is that Sonic the Hedgehog had the longest running comic book based on a video game. Archie Comics ran their title for twenty-four years. And I had heard about this because the series developed both a big fan base and a lot of legal issues. Quite frankly, I suspect that reading about all the behind-the-scenes events might be more entertaining for me than the actual comic book.
And here's the kicker. The bundle (and I knew this going in) is a completely different series produced by IDW. However, I felt it would be still worth my while because I knew the older series would influence the newer one (I believe it even has some of the same creative staff) and IDW has a pretty good track record with IPs.
One thing that was very clear, albeit not remotely surprising, is that Sonic has a lot more personality than Mario lol I think that was Sonic's selling point from the get-go, that he had more attitude than Mario. My family loves Mario games. As the RPGer, I played though Super Mario RPG partially for my family’s entertainment (I was entertained too) and it was good fun. However, Mario is clearly what Scott McCloud referred to in Understanding Comics as a mask, a blank slate we can project ourselves onto. (Works even better as a concept in video games than comic books) Having character works against the purpose of Mario.
Also, as someone who only knew about Sonic and Tails and Knuckles and Shadow (and some of them only thanks to movie trailers), I had no idea how ridiculously big the Sonic cast was lol
The bundle's graphic novels largely consist of the first two story arcs for IDW's version of the comic book. And, boy, are they the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
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The first arc was about Sonic and his friends thwarting a big bad who was trying to gather the setting's McGuffins, the chaos emeralds so thru can conquer the world. It was boilerplate action storyline and I would not be surprised if it was an adaptation of a video game and I just didn't know it. Amusing but forgettable.
The second, longer story arc was the Metal Virus Saga, a zombie apocalypse. Now, instead of dying, the cute critters of Sonic's world were getting coated with metal. Apart from that, pure zombie apocalypse. For an all ages comic book, it was surprisingly dark and emotionally mature about the crisis.
Pretty much right off the bat, Sonic gets infected. He can fight it off with his hyper metabolism but it is a gradually losing battle. Issue after issue of Sonic trying to save the world while he can't save himself. Might not be deep but it definitely drives tension and emotional weight.
The MVP for the arc goes to Cream, a bunny rabbit who turns out to actually be from the games and who feels like a replacement for Tails when they wanted to age him up. (Total guess on my part) While introduced as a beacon of optimism, she has to watch her family succumb to the plague as she struggles to help the survivors. Good job,IDW, getting me emotionally invested in a character.
The single scene that stayed with me was a nameless infected civilian sneaking into the resistance shelter because they didn't want to be alone when they, for all intents and purposes, died. And, yes, it went horribly wrong. It was a surprsingly emotional scene for an all ages work.
I haven’t become a Sonic fan from this experience. However, I was surprised at how good the Metal Virus Saga was.
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