Archie Sonic Comics Mini-Series

Archie Comics Mini-Series

There were so many different Archie Comics Sonic related Mini-Series that they need their own page!
Some of these may be harder to collect, so look carefully in order to complete your Sonic items collection. Anything that ran more than 1 issue with a somewhat continuous arc, regardless of whether it became ongoing, is shown here.

Time to go hardcore and complete your comic collection?
Then you can't miss these mini-series comics, even though Sonic is not in all of them. Out of these, the Princess Sally ones are probably the most difficult to get in original form. The Knuckles miniseries was so popular, that it led to him getting his own comic.

Sonic Quest interior art is farily consistent

This is the Sonic Quest mini-series. It featured a story vaguely along the lines of Sonic 3, wherein Robotnik tried to sink the Floating Island by using the Death Egg. Knuckles, Sonic and the Chaotix had to try and stop him.

The art consistency and story-arc were pretty good on this series. It wasn't anything to blow the fans away, but it was solid enough to sell well. It is not particularly rare to find, and is a good addition to the collection if you like Archie Sonic comics.

The Princess Sally Miniseries. Ironically, an Archie-Cannon character was the first to get their own mini-series spun off of the Sonic books.

It might not be surprising though, as the Princess was a well designed and charismatic character that drew in fans. It was her ability to out-shine Sonic himself, that frightented some!

The art in all 3 books was nice and consistent. There weren't any horrible scenes, badly done pannels, or atrocious character design. If you enjoy the style, all 3 books will impress. They really appear as a nice effort with a witty enough plot and good planning all around.

The main "Mystery Point" was their only faux-pas, in that it involved a fake Sally in a purple vest. The purple vest looked like another of their Inking Errors, which were fairly common, and so was dismissed rather then "Cleverly caught onto" as they had intented for fans to do.

Because it's not Sonic, it's not easy to get a hold of this mini-series. Expect high prices where you do find it.

Tails was the next to get a mini-series, but he didn't fare nearly as well. If only the interior art was as good as the covers...!

Manak and Mawhinny were the main interior pencillers, and their sloppy, scratchy style was generally unappealing. The comics were also streight-foreward, with no real intellectual plot points or mystery to keep anyone engaged. His 'backup' also consisted entirely of new and un-appealing characters.

It didn't help his cause that Tails was portrayed as a somewhat-bratty babyish character who had a huge ego, and would regularly fantasize himself as an ugly super-hero-type. Also: TAILS IS NOT BROWN. My scans aren't bad, it is just that Archie is still insisting that Tails is not orange/yellowish.

Horrible interior art offends Tails fans

Tails is mostly supported by the "Downunda Freedom Fighters" The main villain is "Croc-Bot" who has stolen Crocodile Dundee's hat. He unleashes various annoying plans such as giant sheep robots and flying Dingoes, before failing to overthrow Robotnik. Tails also encounters the Ancient Walkers, which are dinosaurs in African-Theme masks. (These later play a big part in the Knuckles books) The echidna on the cover is Athair, an ancestor in the complex Knuckles line.

Why they went with the whole "This is Austraila and we are going to make fun of it" theme is unknown. (note: opera house base) Lame villains. Lame backup characters (A hippie bird, a kangaroo man!) lame plot. Lame art. Lame characterization...it was all down hill.

Naturally, with this sub-par showing, Tails did not get any rave reviews or hopes to continue his series. Was it fair Sally got most of the talent and ideas, and Tails did not? No, but that's the way history goes.

Knuckles fared the best with his mini-series comics. He had 2, each with 3 issues, that led him to a regular series.

Again, consistent art and a fairly good plotline helped him along. He also had a strong enough/well portrayed personality, and the support of Sega fans who thought Knuckles was cool.

Early Knuckles comic interior art with Archie Ant and Enerjak

The Knuckles storylines could also easily be crossed over into Sonic's, and vice-versa for extra interaction. The Chaotix also brought in fans to support the series.

Keep in mind though, that the book had NO official history of Echidna society to go on, when it was created. Therefore, the continuity is 100% original, and has nothing to do with anything else. This created a monsterous and highly complex storyline with multiple family trees, units of badguys including Enerjak (pictured), the Dark Legion, Mammoth Mogul, and Dingoes.

Any fan who liked to follow this type of storyline would probably benifit from collecting the Knuckles mini-series and short run of regular series.

Note: Archie still believes that all emeralds are always green, even chaos emeralds. They never played a Sonic game, and are running on the assumption that it is just like Earth emeralds. Why hasn't anyone told them, after all these years?

While the photo makes them look like cards, these are actually issues of "Comic Shop News", a free mini news-paper sort of thing available in comic stores in the USA. They're roughly the same size as a standard US comic book. The issues featured in this image contained a promotional comic by Archie that was later collected in Archie's Sonic Super Special #12.
Naturally, the issues of the paper are a bit rare-er than the actual comics themselves. Info by:

It is now confirmed that the series will continue in the coming months. It appears support (unsurprisingly) is good for the books so far, so expect more great Sonic content to collect!

The next mini-series is for Sonic X. 4 issues long, it is about to wrap up with the 4th. As you can see, most of the art is more consistent then in the regular books, and tries to keep on model with the show.

No "Archie" characters are featured, meaning you can jump right in. The stories seem appropriate to the way the show is handled.

The comic was continued after the initial 4 issue arc. It went on to run for 40 issues, ending with the 40th (and announced in the 39th issue)

What will the next Mini-Series be?

The Sonic X comic made for a nice tie-in with the show, however, it's ability to last was ALWAYS limited. Sonic X (TV) had a very linear plot, moving from A to Z with adventures in-between. (Sonic & co. getting stuck on Earth, and their main quest to be getting back to their own dimension, via the Emeralds/Chaos Control) If the book was to parrot the show, it would eventually reach the end, and no more could be produced. This comic did not choose that way, it got as far as bringing in the Chaotix, but was composed of ONLY side-stories and could be looked at as a type of "Filler Arc" which used characters from the games and show.
As initialy expected, it's filler style eventually had to end. With Sonic X itself ending quite perilously, and in a way that Archie Comics might not even allow (!!) the book had to be stopped. It lasted 40 issues, and did have a planned ending. Final cover discovered by Streakthefox.

What's Next?
Sonic Universe. Sonic X series has been replaced by the Sonic Universe series. This series looks like it will be a more free-raging non-earth setting for the cast of the games. Silver, Blaze, Shadow, Chaotix, Rouge, and likely any game character you can think of will be appearing. (Keep in mind Blaze & co. are in another dimension)
This change will free the book from the confines of the "X" universe/plot. It was released in in Jan/Feb of 2009.

This series WAS SUPPOSED TO continue the plot that was started in the final issue of Sonic X, so you can see a bit of how it resolves. Spaz appears to be making a return for a few of its covers, and that's a welcome thing as he was a fan favorite.

The interesting aspect of this comic seems to be that it is not toally "Sonic Centric" so that for periods of 3 or 4 issues, sonic may *appear* but the focus is on another character. The first 4 issues have Shadow as the central element, while later issues will use Knuckles. This new style will give the book an interesting variety. From the impressions of the first issue, it seemed like it could be a really solid book. The character focus variety should keep everyone interested so long as they can keep the art quality up and the plots interesting.

As of issue 4, the comic looks like it has totally dropped its original premise. Spaz is off the covers, but Yardley does a good enough job in his stead. The interior art remains solid, there's nothing super ugly or wrong in it. The characters are pretty much on-model so it continues to look just fine.

The plot has taken a dive though, and looks like it will continue to do so. The book appears to be being used as a "Dumping Ground" for all the stories that won't fit into the main Archie Sonic continuity they have. This means that the comic is essentially "Archie Sonic 2" and doesn't provide anything really games related or different. It also refuses to continue anything like what was said earlier about Sonic X's plot wrapping up in it.

As you can see with the above scan Team Dark is indeed featured, but Feist the panda bear god and creator of all chaos emeralds (who, being in an Archie book is also vein and dim-witted!) has been brought over right away from the main Archie continuity.
The book was supposed to be a fresh start and break away from all the over-complex Archieverse comics so that ANYone could get into Sonic who liked X, or the games without having years of experience collecting zillions of old books just to know the characters. Any changes to the theme or format will be added here.

Interesting note:
What do YOU want to see in the comic? You can write them and ask for it. The book is billed as being 'customizable' to the wants of the fans. You're a fan, what do you want to see? Every letter counts because precious few people will write, so if you do it, you might just get your way!

How to do it:
Send an email to Sonic @ ArchieComics.com with "MySonic Universe" in the title. In the letter, just put whatever you'd like them to do. (More Blaze? More Marine? Silver? Stories with the werehog or games-based things? Its up to you)

In 2014, Archie is starting a Sonic Boom comic that's separate from their other 2 Sonic lines. (Which makes sense, since everyone has to keep Boom separate / its another universe alt-universe) will it be a mini series, or will it be ongoing? Remember, they had the Sonic X comic too, which only lasted as long as the show did. This comic is being launched before the Boom show & game.

This image here is a prototype-like art for a cover of one of the early issues of this comic.

Here is the final cover for Sonic Boom Issue 1. (Far left) This kick-off to the new series (will it be mini, or ongoing? Entry will move depending) also came with 4 variant covers. So you

would have to buy 5 of the same comic if you wanted it to be complete. The 4 variations seen here all fit together to create 1 long image, so each cover "stars" a character or two on their own so that no one will appear twice. The variant covers are labeled with that little plaque at the bottom. This should release in Nov. 2014 (all of them at once)