Sub Sonic (AKA "Honey, I shrunk the Hedgehog")

Written by Mike "Toxic paint smell" Bullock

Pencilled by David "Kung Fu Grip" Hutchison

Cover by Patrick "Spring loaded missle" Spaziante

Story synopsis:

An old friend of Doc Brown's is in town showing off his latest invention, a form of warp-shrink ray that will let you "travel between alternate dimensions on a sub-atomic level" whatever that means. Since Chuck promised Chris that he'd take him to the toy store to buy some "Roboticles" and his friends laboratory is coveniently across the street Chris, Sonic and the gang head in tow. Meanwhile Eggman sees the news on Chucks friend Dr. Pell on T.V. and decides he wants the shrink ray for himself and decides to head out and find Dr. Pell to steal the ray from him.

As Sonic and the others are checking out the final prototype of the ray, when Eggman and his robot chronies in mecha suits smash through right when Dr. Pell is testing the ray. He accidentaly hits Eggman and his robots along with Sonic and Tails. All five shrink to action figure size. Eggman decides to attack Sonic and Tails while they are shrunk. Tails jumps into a toy plane that happens to be on the floor (in the lab?) and Sonic hops on and they fly out of the building with Eggman and the bots hanging off the edge of the plane. They land in the toy store and the wacky highjinks ensue. Sonic is chased by Eggman in a toy jeep and is firing plastic missles at him. Tails is chased by Becco and Decco into a Barbie-type doll house. The robots fall in love with the toy doll while Tails makes a getaway in a pink toy car. (This scene reminds me a little of Gizmo riding around the mall in his toy car in "Gremlins")

Meanwhile Chuck and Dr. Pell work quickly on fixing the ray remote, While Tails still in the barbie car, crashes into Sonic and they are trapped by Eggman and the bots who are about to hit them with plastic missles. (and these can hurt them how?) Just when it looks like Sonic and Tails are about to be skewered with plastic, the doctor uses the ray to bring everyone back to normal size. Eggman and his robots were going full speed on his robo suit, and they end up getting zapped right into a garbage bin. Due to the damage Chuck is forced to buy every broken toy in the store. Chris is happy because he gets a ton of Robonicle toys in the process. (Just what every rich kid wants, boxes of broken toys.)

Review:

Uhhhh... yea. I expected a lot more from "Lions, Tigers, and Bears" writer Mike Bullock, but this story is poorly concieved and barely makes any sense. Theres a ton of questions left over that will never be answered. Such as:

Why the nightmare at the beginning? Is Sonic psychic about his future adventures now?

Why keep bringing up this Rubinite substance that help makes the ray work? It brings nothing to the plot. You could've just said that Dr. Pell finally invented this shrink ray he'd been working on. Less exposition needed.

Finally, and this is a big one. At one point Sonic and Tails avoid the robots by jumping into crane machine and pose with the plushies. In the plushies is a bunch of evil looking versions of Sonic and his pals. Tails is even freaked out by the evil looking plush of himself. Where'd these come from? Who made them? What's the point?!!

This is a jumbled mess of a story that makes me wish Archie would just give Joe Edkin a full time position. I'm getting sick of all these guest writers coming in. (Except Ian of course.) Only one scene made me laugh. When Dr. Pell and Chuck are patting themselves on the back about how great they are, Amy chimes in and says "Yea, yea. You're both great. Now gimmie the thingy so we can save the hero!" Finally I'm very suprised at Mike Pollock. LTAB is such a great kids book, that I'm shocked at how bad his writing was on this issue.

OVERALL 5/10 Worst....issue...ever. Pass it up on the stands.