Review of IDW Sonic The Hedgehog Issue 30

What IDWSonicNews co-founder Toruhiiyi thought of the 30th issue of IDW Sonic the Hedgehog.

IDW Sonic has finally had the Metal Virus arc come to a close. However, this issue still had questions to answer, and to follow up on a lot of intense moments of the previous arc. So how did it fair up?

Your reviewer

Toruhiiyi

Co-owner of IDWSonicNews, artist, writer, talks about Sonic and…

Recap

So the Metal Virus arc has come to a close with Issue 29, however this doesn’t mean things are over. Sonic has disappeared and everyone has just been recovered. The issue starts with Silver discussing Sonic’s disappearance with Amy, Tails, and Knuckles. The discussion here is quick and efficient, leading us to the first big point of the issue, Zavok. Cream argues with Zavok, and Zavok is unimpressed, however Cream uses her Chao to start the pain Zavok is about to experience. 

Some people say the fight was a letdown and Zavok was too strong to be defeated by that. However, I disagree. Zavok was clearly weaker from Super Sonic destroying him in Issue 29, with the art denoting his scratch marks. Although the art could have shown his weakened strength better, but with everyone attacking, it felt deserved. It was payback for the pain they went through.

Amy, Tails, and Knuckles then talk about the future of the resistance and what to do next. Knuckles is adamant that everyone leaves the island, but Amy doesn’t budge. She brought up the fact he abandoned the resistance. She also talks about Sonic and it brings up one of my problems with the issue. Combined with the art and dialogue, I found it difficult to tell if Amy is drawn either tired or upset. I am even not 100 percent certain if I am correct with my assumptions after reading the issue through.

Next, we see some dialogue with the Zeti escaping and the Babylon Rogues reuniting. I really like these scenes – the interactions are interesting and also shows the audience that the Zeti will return, but will be gone for a while. Their return is unknown, and there’s no idea if it will be in the future mini-series, Bad Guys.

Then, a shuttle escapes as Amy and Tails notice Eggman got away on it. Knuckles saw it and leaves to go back to the altar where Rouge is currently located. The conversation they had there was enjoyable and the chemistry was pretty good. Knuckles and Rouge are always really fun to read, so I hope they spend more moments with each other. 

However, Gemerl is the first to find Eggman. Before Gemerl can do anything about it, Metal Sonic appears behind and rips out his metaphorical heart. This scene had the potential to be great, however, it was ruined to me by several things. One problem is that Metal Sonic drops Gemerl with a shot from Whisper and it is unknown where he falls. This left me confused and took me out of the experience for a second. Also, I found Cream’s reaction to be underwhelming as Gemerl stuck with Cream during the entire Metal Virus arc, so for him to die would be really impactful to her. Personally, I would fix these two problems by adding an extra panel of Gemerl falling on the ground, as Cream looks on with a traumatized expression. This would answer my question while making the scene more impactful.

Eggman then takes Omega’s head away as Shadow engages in a fight with Metal Sonic, meanwhile, the others can’t do anything because of Zavok. Now, I really like the Metal Sonic and Shadow fight as it’s very well done and impactful. The end has Metal Sonic escape with Eggman in the shuttle as Shadow looks on. This issue here is that… Shadow has Chaos Spears and Chaos Control. That would allow him to teleport, but the fact it wasn’t used here probably made some readers upset with the ending. A simple way to solve this is to let the readers know he’s thinking that way, but cannot commit due to inherent limitations. For example, you would have Shadow say a line like: “Out of range”, and maybe a scowl along with that. These are among my line of criticisms in IDW Sonic when a character gets dumbed down or acts out of character in order to advance the plot. The community coined this, “Idiot Ball.”

Shadow has been the most criticized in this category; however, Sonic has been argued to have this for a while as well as others. I hope they fix this problem in the future or explain the characters’ actions better, by going into others’ thoughts that aren’t Sonic’s.

Finally, we return to Blaze’s world where we see Gardon from Sonic Rush Adventure making an appearance. Seeing him return was really cool and it was really nice seeing Blaze’s world again. However, we find out Sonic has crashed into Blaze’s world to end the issue. This was easy to see coming, but it was also a good way to bring Blaze back into the story and to quell any sort of “overhype” in the community about Sonic’s disappearance.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this issue was good! However, it stops being great due to the art and story direction which lead confused me at some parts. The art feels a little lackluster than usual and makes some scenes have less impact. Despite that, I am really interested in seeing where this story goes from here. It was a strong issue to lead from the Metal Virus arc.