Review: Sonic the Hedgehog #35 (IDW)

“Chao Races and Badnik Bases” – Part 3
Story: Evan Stanley
Art: Adam Bryce Thomas
Colors: Reggie Graham
Letters: Shawn Lee
Assistant Editor: Riley Farmer
Editor: David Mariotte
Cover: Aaron Hammerstrom and Reggie Graham

Jumping in deep on this review, as this is part 3 of a 4 part storyline. At some point I’ll go back and review the whole story arc, but for now, I’ll be covering the issues that have the iconic Sonadow moments.

To sum up Parts 1 and 2, Sonic and friends go out on an adventure to scavenge parts to fix up E-123 Omega. Sonic and Tails check out a badnik base, while Rouge invites Amy and Cream on an undercover mission to White Park where Chao Races are held, in order to find a collector of tech and treasures, named Clutch and get parts from his collection. Meanwhile, Shadow is on his own mission to find someone, and crosses paths with a mysterious assailant. After some races, the gang meet up with Clutch, where he gets ambushed by Shadow. Sonic and Tails, meanwhile, are searching the base, coming across a wooden robot named Belle, and they deal with badniks that come after them. Everything leading up to Part 3.

Part 3 picks up with Sonic, Tails and Belle dealing with a sudden rush of badniks filling the base. The trio work together to escape the base and back up to the snow-covered surface near the Tornado. Once back to the plane, Tails discovers that Rouge has left a message asking for them to meet up with her in White Park. Sonic and Tails do so, bringing their new friend Belle with them.

At the lodge in White Park, Sonic and Belle, without Tails, meets up with Amy. It seems that Tails went to meet up with Rouge. Sonic introduces Amy to Belle, who welcomes her as they head over to the penthouse where Clutch has kept a bunch of chao locked up. Belle offers to open the locks with the tools she has built into her hands, much to Cream’s delight, who has been worried about freeing the chao.

While Belle and Cream were working on that, Amy expresses her concern about not finding Rouge earlier, and may be worried for Tails. Sonic offers to run patrol outside to see if he could find them, leaving Amy and Gemerl (Cream’s guardian), to contend with Clutch, who wasn’t as unconscious as they were left to believe. From the darkness, Clutch takes a pot shot at Amy with a laser built into his cane, before siccing a giant bear badnik on her and Gemerl. Smaller badniks go after Belle and Cream, leaving Amy to fight off the big guy while Gemerl goes to protect Cream.

Meanwhile, Tails wakes up tied up in a rollercoaster, along with Rouge, who had been hypnotized by their mysterious assailant riding the coaster with them. Sonic shows up, spotting the kidnapped duo and starts to chase after them on the tracks. The mystery assailant throws a whole coaster car at Sonic, throwing him off the tracks and sending him falling.

This leads up to our Sonadow moment of the story, when Shadow catches Sonic in his arms, berating him for not being able to dodge the object. Sonic for his part is just more than happy to see Shadow.

Sonic and Shadow catch back up to the rollercoaster to find out their assailant is none other than Starline, who had been missing in action for a while. Sonic prepares to attack Starline, but he sets off an avalanche, giving Sonic the classic “Save your friends, or the innocent people” choice, leaving it off for Part 4.

STORY: This feels like your typical run of the mill action story for Sonic and friends, although Amy and co tangling with Clutch can be interesting. However, there’s not too much of that in this part since much of those interactions happened before in parts 1 and 2. When comparing Part 3 to the other part of the story arc, this is probably one of the more…I don’t know if ‘boring’ is the right word, but more of the ‘run of the mill.’. That would be the only reason why the score will be lower.
RATING: 6/10

HEART: Our only real heart moment (besides what will be covered in the Sonadow Factor) is Amy’s moment where she wishes Sonic were with her to help deal with the giant bear badnik she was struggling with, but she has to remind herself that she can’t always depend on him to do everything, and takes it upon herself to take the reins. It’s a small moment, but good and healthy for Amy as a character.
RATING: 6/10

THE SONADOW FACTOR: We only get one brief moment. Shadow cares enough to actually catch Sonic from falling, when it could have chased more after the mystery assailant. Chastising him for not dodging is very in line with Shadow’s character, knowing Sonic is capable of being better, worthy of being a rival and more. Sonic is just happy to have Shadow along for the ride. And he looked like he enjoyed being carried by Shadow.
RATING: 6/10