Sonic Select: Book Eight

I hate adding anything new to the backlogs, but the Archie Sonic comic is something I’m trying to catch up on. Unfortunately, Archie isn’t making it easy. It’s re-releasing the main series in order, the Knuckles series too late, and the mini-series and special issues all over the place. This set contains comics that the Archives are both forty issues behind and seventy issues ahead. It’s the whole Tails sage.

The first story, Submersible Rehearsal, is originally from the Sonic Triple Trouble special, which was already reprinted in Select Book One. The plot is pretty basic, setting up Tails’ main conflict. Rotor builds the Sea Fox, but to Tails’ chagrin, he has been forbidden by Sally to put any oil in it. As tails stews over this, an oil soaked bird plops up on shore, saying Robotnik (yeah, remember that name? It’s been awhile since he was called that) has a henchmen building an undersea Roboticizer. Using the oil, Tails takes the Sea Fox on it’s maiden voyage, to beat Robotnik’s Octobot. It’s short, only five pages, and filled with the usual early day laughs.

The next story is the two part Growing Pains, published in Sonic the Hedgehog #28-29, again, already published in the Archives (#7, to be precise). Following the events of the main story of that issue, where Sonic got amnesia and Robotnik convinced him the Freedom Fighters were his enemy, an angry Tails takes the Sea Fox out to a deserted island, where we’re introduced to Fiona Fox... kind of. It’s a duplicate. I still haven’t read the issue where she’s really introduced, so I can’t comment on it, but considering how the real Fiona turns out makes this story tragic.

There’s not much to say about this story either, but I’m a little off-put on how Tails survived that exploding Roboticizer. Robotnik has ask on his face, but Tails looks relatively unharmed, despite being in the blasted thing. Oh well, it children’s comic logic, I guess, but even as a kid I noticed stuff like this.

Now we get to the real meat of this collection, the Tails miniseries. This one hasn’t been published, and it’s the first time I’ve read it. This was written at a time when the comic was drifting between serious and funny, not sure where it wanted to be. The Sally miniseries that predates this was pretty serious, but this one’s pretty goofy.

Robotnik does the whole ‘You Have Failed Me’ thing, and even mentions his “good friend Darth” while doing it, and there’s more of the thousands of Freedom Fighters that popped up everywhere in those days. I hated when these guys showed in the more recent comics because they were a bunch of new characters that I didn’t know on top of the thousands of Echidnas Penders made.

Part one is Tails discovering Robotnik’s blimp, only to be shot down and end up in a rematch with Octobot, which he ends up losing. He’s saved by the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters, who don’t show up after this until the very end.

Part Two opens with a very embellished retelling from Tails. Here, the story kind of repeats. Tails gets into a fight with forces sent by Crocbot, Robotnik’s underboss, only to be saved by the Downunda Freedom Fighters. The blimp arrives, Crocbot plans to steal Robotnik’s resources, and Tails meets Altair, the first of many Knuckles recolors.

Part Three has Altair tell Tails of a prophecy that I think he fulfilled in an earlier Sonic Select, I don’t know, and goes on to defeat Crocbot with the help of the Downunda Freedom Fighters. Big surprise, they win and Tails decides to go home.

Besides setting up his role for a later story, Tails is actually not much use in the main story, and that’s the point. In the end, Sally and the others were right to keep him out of battle, he’s young and needs more direction. I like this, though considering later stories centered around Sonic combatting this very thing... eh.

The covers for the Tails series are misleading. They make it look like it’s going to be serious, but it ends up being more comical. Crocbot actually looks menacing rather than silly. The silly tone doesn’t mesh well with the mysterious elements of Althair’s prophecy, but it’s serviceable enough.

The final story is The Chosen One, a two-part story told in the back pages of Sonic the Hedgehog #249-250. It’s pretty simple; Zonic pulls Tails and Sonic into his zone to fight Mammoth Mogul, with several other Tails from different worlds. So, it’s a rehash of the fight with RoboRobotnik from early in the comic’s run. It’s... okay.

Yeah, this was a pretty “eh” collection. Nothing really stood out, and considering how long these thing take to get out, it’s a real disappointment. The next Archives isn’t due out until January, so the waiting begins anew.

Rating: 6/10