In 1992 the Archie Comic Book Company took upon them the job to produce a monthy Sonic series. Well, they did a cruddy job of it in the beginning. The series was a run of the mill, badly drawn, faulty story line comic that would have looked right in place in the Sunday paper. In got better though. Now in 2001 the series is going strong with over 100 issues. I've been collecting them since I was seven, yet I have massive gaps in my collection and it has come to a stand still at #88. Anyway, this section is to show you the advancements in the comic book series as far as drawning and story line go.
THE FIRST ISSUE
The first issue came out in February of 1992. The early issues tended to have word bubbles on the cover as well as a picture underneath the issue number. That disappeared later on. As the yellow bubble below Sonic states, this comic series was created off of the video games(you can tell by the background as well).
Now let's see how the characters have changed over the years.
I'd like to start off with Princess Sally, who has had the most considerable change. Here is a picture of Sally from comic #0 and a picture from #31.
Little obvious, neh?
Okay, now Sonic. This is rather laughable. Sonic has had several artists for the Archie series and they make no effort to hide it. Here are pictures of Sonic from various issues.
#00 
#31 
#47 
#50 
#77 
#87
All the other characters; Tails, Bunnie, Antoine, Rotor, Knuckles, ect., all follow about the same pattern. Some change more than others, like Sally, some change barely at all, like Rotor. But, we all know that an artist gets better at drawing a certain character over time. Now if Archie could stick with one artist long enough, that would make a world of difference.
Since Archie was given the rights to Sonic, they could do pretty much what they wanted. Sega had little say in the comics story lines. Although there are advents in the comics that did happen in Sonic's official story line, some are just down right false and Sega will agree. Now I'd like to make just a brief list of advents that have taken place in Sonic the Hedgehog the comic(true or false);
Sonic joins the Freedom Fighters
Sonic and the gang, along with Robotnic are abducted by an alien and kept as pets(don't believe me? Issue 23)
Sonic looses his memory and goes to the bad side
Sonic finds that his Uncle Chuck has regained his memory and is going to be a spy for the Freedom Fighters(the cover art starts to get good around this time)
Robotic is sucked into a computer and Snively takes over
Sonic loses his speed
Sonic is robotized(it never happened!)
Sonic, Sally, and St. John go into the Zone of Silence(hmm, looks like the Void to me) and rescue King Acorn
King Acorn starts turning into crystal because he's not in the Zone of Silence anymore
Sonic and Knuckles discover an alternate universe where Sonic is evil and Knuckles is a peace loving wimp
Sonic and the gang find a frozen 10,000 year old mobian they name "Mobie" and revieve him(now there's something that totally didn't happen!)
Sonic is accused of killing Sally and is put on the run like a fugitive(issue 48 is actually tittled "Sonic the Fugitive")
Did I say brief?
Sonic kills off Robotnic(Issue 50, and that DID happen!)
Sally turns out to be alive and everything is cool
Sonic is thrown into an alternate universe(again) where he gets to play Dick Tracey for a day(Issue 52, it's a cool story really)
Sonic and Tails go off exploring the world(I think they were looking for Ixis Naugus) and find a group of Freedom Fighters devoted to Sonic(big statue and everything)
Sonic and Tails meet up with Ixis Naugus at the Southern Tundra part of Mobius and have a battle
They meet an old friend of the king's named Nate Morgan(human! bad! He's actually a good guy but still, he's human!)
They defeat Ixis(Ultimate Hyper all the way!)
Sonic plays Indiana Jones to find the Ring of Acorns
Sally finds out she has a brother
Sonic finds that his parents are still alive
The king stops turning into crystal and fully recovers
Something to do with the Choas Emeralds makes Sonic take on his "Sonic Adventure" look
Robotnic returns!
Uncle Chuck gets re-programmed to the bad side
Robotnic builds a huge satellite where all the re-controlled Robians go
Sonic blows in up and saves Uncle Chuck and his parents
Robotnic dies(again) in the explotion
Robotnic comes back(again) but in a new body(in his "Sonic Adventure" look)
I really was gonna' make this brief...
Sonic gets knighted!
Archie comics does a "Sonic Adventure" tie in(it was annoying to watch them attempt to make everything work)
Sonic meets "Mecha Sonic" at the end of the "Sonic Adventure" tie-in and kicks his metal ass(there is a Silver Sonic, 2 Metal Sonics, a Mecha Sonic, and afew other robots modeled after Sonic)
Metal Sonic, revamped totally, kidnaps Tails and Sonic has to save him
After all that, Sonic finds that his Uncle Chuck, still under mind control, is behind a massive plot against the good guys
Okay...... that's as far as my collection goes... Even I don't know what happens next... Sheesh, that was long.....
And now in closing to this section I give you the cover of the most recent comic in my collection, #88, for you to compare to the cover of #00 at the top.
Things change, huh?
