Sonic the Comic Issue 17


 * Editor: Richard Burton
 * Assistant Editor: Deborah Tate
 * Design: Clare Gillmore
 * Managing Editor: Steve MacManus
 * Publisher: Chris Power

Sonic the Hedgehog - "Sonic the Human"

 * Script: Ed Hillyer
 * Art: Ed Hillyer
 * Lettering: Elitta Fell

Synopsis
Sonic and Tails are captured by Doctor Robotnik, who is wearing a giant mech suit (much like the final boss from Sonic 2)...

...until Sonic wakes up, and realises it's all a dream. However, things are strange. He is wearing odd clothes, and a look in the mirror reveals he has turned into a young human boy! He is in a boy's bedroom, and a voice from the kitchen downstairs calls for "Erin". He goes downstairs to check it out (not noticing that he still casts a hedgehog shadow) and a woman downstairs says she is his mother. When he claims to be Sonic the Hedgehog, she brushes it off as an over-active imagination (probably from playing computer games), and sits him down to breakfast: a hard-boiled egg. But Sonic hates eggs, and quickly speeds away into the back garden.

He hears a voice from behind the fence - a small boy is trapped whose hair looks just like Tails' tails. The boy screams that someone is coming for him, and Sonic tries to save him. But he can't spin, and instead knocks himself unconscious on the fence.

When he wakes up, he is back in his bedroom, tucked in so tightly that he can't even move. His mother appears with just the thing to make him better: a nice egg. But the egg is cracked open and filled with a disgusting, glowing green slime. She tries to force-feed him, insisting that he'll soon realise he's just an ordinary boy... and then she calls him Spikeball, just like Robotnik does.

Suddenly Sonic knows the truth: he's not a boy who dreamed he was a hedgehog, but a hedeghog dreaming he's a boy. He forces himself to wake up, and finds that he had been plugged into Robotnik's Brain Drain Machine, which was designed to turn him into Robotnik's mindless slave. Robotnik flees in his Egg-O-Matic. Sonic frees Tails, who is still stuck into the Machine. He tries to explain what happened - "imprisoned by huge, horrible creatures on a terrifying alien planet" - but knows that Tails would never believe him.

Appearances

 * Sonic the Hedgehog (Erin)
 * Miles "Tails" Prower (neighbour boy)
 * Doctor Ivo Robotnik
 * Erin's mother
 * Buzzer
 * Captive bat

Trivia

 * In "Erin's" bedroom, several items can be seen, including:
 * Model aeroplanes resembling the Tornado and a Balkiry badnik
 * A Sega Mega Drive with controller
 * A copy of Sonic the Comic over the back of a chair
 * A poster of Judge Dredd (a comic also published by Fleetway, which many STC writers and artists also worked on, including Mark Millar)

Ecco the Dolphin - "Part 5"
Ecco reaches the lost city of Atlantis, where he first myriad Glyphs of Knowing. They reveal to Ecco that they were left behind by the men of Atlantis, who so feared the alien Vortex that they seeded Ecco's race with the aim of creating a dolphin with the knowledge and power to defeat the alien menace: Ecco himself! The Glyphs unlock the secrets within him, revealing the face of the Vortex, and granting him the ability to both sense the aliens' presence and use his sonar as a weapon to destroy their machines. Ecco vows to defeat the Vortex and fulfill his destiny!
 * Script: Woodrow Phoenix
 * Art: Steve White
 * Lettering: Tom Frame

The Legend of the Golden Axe - "Plague of Serpents, Part 5"
Gilius-Thunderhead charges to the rescue of his sister, Yuki-Plantcharmer, and queen, Silpantia-Dragontamer. The snake priest Cobraxis transfigures his snakes into humanoid snake warriors. Yuki, once freed, conjures a bamboo garden, which grows quickly and stabs the snake warriors, killing them. Cobraxis still intends to capture the dwarves, but Queen Silpantia uses her own magic to summon the local dragon flight, and suddenly the entire mountain begins to fall around them!
 * Script: Mark Eyles
 * Art: Mike White
 * Lettering: Ellie de Ville

Tails - "The Nameless Zone, Part 2"

 * Script: Nigel Kitching
 * Art: Dave Windett
 * Lettering: Elitta Fell

Synopsis
The Enchanter Kings bring Tails (wearing his Enchanted Battle Armour) to the Dimension Bridge at the edge of the Nameless Zone. There, he is expected to fight the monstrous Trogg in single-combat, or Trogg's berserker forces will over-run the Nameless Zone foxes. Tails is apprehensive, since he is not the hero of Mobius that he is believed to be, but nevertheless steps onto the bridge. Trogg laughs, ridiculing Tails for his short stature, then insists that Tails attack first. Tails does so, but his sword misses widely and instead hits one of the bridge's ropes. Trogg then quickly defeats Tails, and is about to deliver the finishing blow when the rope snaps, sending both of them tumbling into the chasm below.

Trogg manages to grab onto one side of the broken rope, and believes himself victorious since Tails apparently fell to his doom. Tails then flies back up with his twin tails - revealing that he can fly very well in his magic armour - and demands that Trogg surrender "or there might be a little accident with the bridge's other rope". Tails is hailed as a champion by his fellow foxes, before the Enchanter Kings send him back to Mobius through a dimensional portal. His Enchanted Armour cannot leave the Zone, however, and the Enchanter Kings promise to protect it lest they need their champion again.

Back in the Emerald Hill Zone, Sonic thanks Tails for staying out of his way and asks what Tails has been doing. Tails responds: "Oh, nothing Sonic... nothing at all."

Appearances

 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Enchanter Kings
 * Trogg
 * Fox soldiers
 * Sonic the Hedgehog

Continuity

 * Tails defeats Trogg for the first time.
 * Tails decides not to tell Sonic about his adventures in the Nameless Zone. Sonic will never learn about his friends adventures, although Knuckles eventually will.

Other features

 * Control Zone
 * Review Zone
 * News Zone
 * Q Zone
 * Speedlines