Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 28
IDW Publishing
Story: Ian Flynn
Art: Evan Stanley, Adam Bryce Thomas
Colours: Matt Herms, Elaina Unger
“All or Nothing,” Part Three! Sonic’s allies continue their missions against the Deadly Six, attempting to reclaim the Chaos Emeralds. Who will return from their final stands? And will they make it back before Sonic has to face Zavok? Fantastic battles continue as we reach the climax of the Metal Virus Saga.
It’s a purple and black attack on the cover of my issue this time, as Abby Bulmer gives a nice, classic feeling shot of Espio and Zazz. Interestingly, the other two covers focus on Silver and Whisper taking on Zor, which leaves no love for the other clash in the issue. Cover B by Bracardi Curry is especially nice though.
Adam Bryce Thomas took the first two-thirds of the issue art-wise, with Evan Stanley finishing up. Matt Herms covered the first couple of pages (and the flats up to the two-thirds mark), but the majority of the colour work was by Elaina Unger this time. There were some interesting things to spot with this setup.
The team-up of Silver and Whisper gave plenty of opportunities to show the difference between the characters in terms of general feel here, and Adam did a great job with it. Silver was as over the top as you’d expect, while Whisper remained a lot more reserved. On the flip side, I’m not a fan of Zazz’s facial expressions here. His head feels wider than it normally does for some reason. However, Adam did do a wonderful job with The Babylon Rogues in the final battle section.
Evan took over for the return to Angel Island – and Rouge getting a chance to shine against Zavok – and is as good as ever. It is very clear that the colourist has changed here. The pages where Matt did all (or some) work, look in line with previous issues. On Elaina’s solo pages, the colours feel thicker and darker in tone. It’s not a bad thing, everything still looks really good, but it’s a very clear shift.
From a story standpoint, this was a tale of two halves. The battles were a little disappointing to me. Having the full issue dedicated to two fights last time around worked well. Here, with three split over half the length, it felt like it lost the urgency and transitioned into rushed for me. We got to where we needed to be, and it was nice seeing The Babylon Rogues doing their thing, but I kinda feel like this all needed more time.
Now, once we return to Angel Island, things mostly get back on track. Sonic’s logic is a little flawed, I would say. He argues that if Silver came back because everything was infected in the future, then they must have done the Super Sonic plan and had it fail already. That’s not necessarily true. Silver coming back led meant the forces were split differently than they would have been otherwise. It could just have easily meant that, without Silver, they were too thinly spread and failed to get the emeralds.
But that’s nit-picky on my part. There is at least an effort to give Sonic some intelligence here and set up a potential stumbling block, which was cool. Rouge was a blast, and her actions lead to a super-charged Zavok too, giving us a giant boss battle for the next issue. Oh, and ending the issue with Sonic facing off against the Zombot versions of his friends? That was a nice touch!
So, how do I rate this one? Honestly, I enjoyed it, but it was a step down from the last issue. I’m going to go with 3.5 out of 5, but I am excited for the next one.
Matt Doyle Media 