The Sonic Archives series has emerged as one of Archie's best-selling trade paperbacks, as fans both new and old can relive the glory days of Sonic the Hedgehog in these high-quality, digitally-restored graphic novels, complete with all the classic Sonic stories from the 1990's! Now with Sonic Archives Volume 8, Sonic lovers can add to their collections issues #29-32, stories which are almost impossible to come across now. Stories include: "The Return of Uncle Chuck" - When an experiment of Robotnik's goes horribly awry, the venomous villain finds himself trapped in the "Void," a parallel dimension, while his scheming nephew Snively attempts to wipe Knothole off the map, and with it, the rest of Mobius! Fortunately for our heroes, the experiment also gave Sonic's Uncle Chuck his free will back, and with his help, the Freedom Fighters have a fighting chance of stopping Snively and...could it be...rescuing Robotnik?!
Book Details:
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 7/30/2008
Pages: 112
Volume 8 isn't as bad as some of the early volumes, but it is not good either. In issue 29, Sally is roboticized. This could have been an interesting story, but the writers rush through it so there's not a lot of impact. It's also based on a STUPID FREAKING PLAN. Then there's some Tails junk that I still do not care about.
Issue 30 brings Uncle Chuck back. Sonic gets sent to THE VOID. Snivley tries to take over for a bit? It's a story that is far more interesting than slapstick, but it's not written in a way that actually makes me care. This should be quite a heartwarming moment, but alas.
Issue 31 is the most interesting of the lot, though not because the plot is good. The Freedom Fighters are sabotaging a train with a special robot and Geoffrey St John reappears! He's a douchebag that Sally seems to like for reasons known only to Pender. On the other hand, Sally actually gets to do things in this story, jumping on trains and hacking stuff! When she's rebel princess, she's actually a really fun character! Really hate the unnecessary love triangle though. And Skunk dude is really bad at consent... This uneventful main story is followed by another short Knuckles thing (I will be glad when he has his own series and we get more than 2 page hints. They are annoying). We also see the first part of a Rotor solo story! It does not do well enough to get him a mini series. Unfortunately, it's a fairly boring "I must save my family, but oh no, they are controlled by Robotnik and nothing that happens has any consequence to the overall plot!". We see a couple of the arctic freedom fighters again. I think they go away after this for a long long time.
Finally, we end with a dumb comic about a frozen ancient Mobian. Bleh. It is boring. That is all.
I am starting to see how this series is very hindered by one comic stories...
Finally, these comics are starting to show a bit more consistency. It's taken a bit longer than I expected, but the world is starting to flesh out and the characters are starting to feel a bit more developed. Story elements like Uncle Chuck and King Acorn are finally being utilized, though so far neither has been as well done as in the animated series it seems to be based off of.
The stories here still aren't exactly deep, but they are at least coherent and don't entirely rely on puns to make them readable. I can actually say I enjoyed reading these for reasons other than pure nostalgia!
It's an archive about Sonic dealing with his robot family, Rotor trying to save his enslaved herd and other stories, one notably being about Knuckles. I found these interesting but the cover caught me off guard as I figured Sonic would be in winter mode for these comics. Otherwise it's fine.