Luke Owen reviews Sonic Universe #55…
AAAAARRRR you ready?? “Pirate Plunder Panic” Part One: It’s mystery and mayhem on the high seas as Amy and Cream join first mates Blaze and Marine in their search for the final Sol Emerald! As ships clash on the stormy waters, familiar faces start to appear amongst the opposition and Blaze is targeted as enemy number 1! Who is the new, sinister force leading the robot pirates, and what is his past with Blaze? And what does a certain dynamite duck have to do with it all?
Coming off a major cross-over event like Worlds Collide was never going to be easy for Tracy Yardley. Most comic franchises have this problem and some deal with it better than others. The last issue of Mega Man got over the Worlds Collide comedown by essentially ignoring what had happened and carried on from where they left off; Sonic Universe #55 on the other hand has created a bizarre pirate story with little explanation of why or how they’re there.
The comic takes place in the Sol Zone with Blaze trying to track down the last remaining Sol Emerald. All the while her ship plays host to Amy Rose, Cream and Cheese who have ended up in her world with no memory of how they got there (presumably through the Genesis Wave). Blaze eventually gets aboard the enemy ship where she is met with a shadowy figure who has what she is after.
In the Sonic Community, there are many topics of conversation that split opinion while there are a few that unite. For example, everyone agrees that the series was at its best when it was on the Mega Drive (save for Sonic 3D) and that the 2006 game was a horrendous mess. One of the other consistent points of view is that the core characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Eggman etc) are fine, but the supporting cast are very much not. Over the years, the Sonic universe has managed to amass a cast of characters large enough to rival The Simpsons with only a handful hitting the mark.
It would be unfair to lump Blaze in with this theory because she at least has a character, but it’s very easy to throw Amy Rose, Cream and Cheese under the bus. They’re characters who were presumably created for the female and/or younger audience and have been treated with distain from pretty much everyone beit game or comic writer. It would be fair to say that if you are not a fan of these characters, or the ‘cutesy’ side of Sonic, then you should stay away from Sonic Universe for the next 4 issues – as they are the main stars.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If anything a comic based around Blaze is more interesting that just throwing us back into the Green Hill Zone (which is being saved for the main series) and Amy could serve as a good side character. And for a comic and game series that is male dominant, it’s great to see a run of comics in which there are no men (save for the bad guys), giving the female characters a chance to shine. The problem is that Amy nor Cream and Cheese ever amount to anything and just feel like a hang-ons that are there just to get in the way, leaving Blaze to carry the comic on her own. As such, Sonic Universe #55 is incredibly forgettable and has nothing to write home about.
The artwork (also done by Yardley) is good and the colours are all very bright, but the story itself is just bland. There’s a decent slow build to the (admittedly quite obvious) reveal on the last page but it all feels flat when everything around is so dull. As aforementioned, coming off the back as something as grand and epic as Worlds Collide was going to be tough and while Mega Man held his own (even if it did feel like a bit cheap), Sonic Universe #55 has gone in a direction that is odd, poorly paced and ultimately boring.
