Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island

I haven't read a Sonic the Hedgehog story in a long time, but saw this one at work and wanted to give it a shot!  Sonic and Tails take refuge from a storm on one of the old Death Eggs, which crashed in the ocean. There they discover the Scrapniks - old, discarded badniks which Sigma-117, himself a badnik, has rebuilt so they can be free from Robotnik's programming. The Scrapniks help Sonic and Tails rebuild their plane. But while looking for a part that they need, Mecha Sonic's old programming is triggered!  

I really enjoyed this story about second chances and building the life you want to build.  Your future is in your hands, even if you start out as a badnik - you can change your programming and live the life you want.  It's a very cute story, and I very much recommend it for all Sonic fans!

Sonic the Hedgehog Legacy Collection, Volume 2

When I wrote about Sonic the Hedgehog Legacy Collection, Volume 1, I said that I was excited to get reading Volume 2 because it was full of many of the stories I remembered from when I was younger.  And of all the stories in this volume, it was #25 that I was most waiting for.  Sonic #25 was the Sega CD tie-in, the episode where Sonic races against Metal Sonic.  I remember the comic being good back then, but I honestly wasn't expecting it to hold up so many years later.  I couldn't have been more wrong; #25 was easily the best of the entire collection, combining the fun of Sonic with a really good story.

But how did the rest of the volume hold up?  I have some mixed feelings on this.  The individual Sonic stories were generally pretty good (which is why I rated this 4/5 stars on Goodreads).  But this was the era of side stories, where people like Sally had a miniseries which was only briefly touched on in the comics collected here.  Unfortunately the comics keep referring to these miniseries, but they weren't included in this collection.  So I may have read them years ago, but honestly don't really remember them, which really took away from this collection (it also makes me nervous for Legacy Series Volume 3: are they going to include Mecha Madness?  If not that will be extremely disappointing!  Mecha Madness was part of the main storyline; leaving it out will mean that story arc won't make sense in the collection!  And that being my favourite story arc of the comics, I would be incredibly sad if it isn't included.)

Anyway, I apologize, this has been mostly me ranting.  I enjoyed this graphic novel, but most of my enjoyment may have come from nostalgia.  I don't really recommend it though because of the missing comics that are referred to (specifically the Sally and Tails miniseries).  And I am hoping Volume 3 won't let me down in regards to Mecha Madness.

Sonic the Hedgehog Legacy Collection, Volume 1

For Christmas, my brother didn't just get me Nowadays.  He also got me Sonic the Hedgehog Legacy Collection, Volume 2. When we were younger, my brother used to collect the Sonic comics.  I'd read everything he got because I liked them, too.  I just never bought any because they were his collection.  Volume 2 is made up of most of the comics that my brother had, so I know it'll be full of stories I liked.  But rather than jump right into volume 2, I decided to read Volume 1 first.  So I ordered it from Amazon and finally read all 500 pages over the last day or so. 

Sure, I knew some of the stories, mostly ones that were reprinted in special editions (like Sonic Firsts, which told the story of Bunnie Rabbot's partial roboticization), but overall Sonic the Hedgehog Legacy Collection Volume 1 was a brand new read for me.  It's full of a lot of slap-stick humour (there was actually one story where they paused and said every tree-related pun they could think of before continuing the story!) which was silly but still pretty fun.  Most of these early stories have very little continuity (but what is there is usually pointed out by the editor) and seemed to be almost experimental at times (I'm looking at you, Verti Cal and Horizont Al).  And Snively sort of pulled a Dulcy from season 2 of Sonic SatAM (he just sort of appeared in issue 6 briefly and wasn't seen again for a few issues; at that time he made regular appearances and sort of replaced crabmeat as Robotnik's advisor, but was never explained as to why he was there.  Sure, having watched Sonic SatAM and read further into the comics, I knew why he was there.  But an explanation would have been nice).  That being said, there were some great extras that I'm glad I saw, too.  Like Robotnik's rules and Sonic's chili dog recipe.

So now that I've read Volume 1, I can't wait to get reading Volume 2, which I know has some of the stories I really liked when I was younger!!!!