EDITOR'S NOTE:
Comic time, huh. Wish we could be reading Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou instead, but oh well. While my writer cohort does indeed have some of their old Sonic the Comic issues from back in the day, the reading here was done via the complete Sonic the Comic collection, the complete Sonic the Poster Mag collection and the complete Sonic the Comic Specials collection all on archive.org and scanned, I believe, by the Sonic the Comic Online staff. These scans are a little incomplete in some respects- posters are missing, adverts are usually left out, there's errors here and there like pages in the wrong order and the scan quality varies pretty wildly- but this is the most convenient way to read them if you are so inclined. Additionally, thanks to kak for linking us to the Sonic the Comic Mailing List which had some very interesting behind-the-scenes info.

And now for something a little different- British comics based on all your favourite Sega games!



Sonic the Comic was the UK's official Sega comic-slash-magazine, starting on the 19th of May, 1993 and running until the 9th of January, 2002 for a whopping two hundred and twenty-three (223) issues (although for several years before the end it was entirely reprinted stories with no new content). It was a completely different beast from the Sonic the Hedgehog comic from Archie released in the USA, as while the plot of the Sonic stories did indeed involve a team of anthropomorphic characters called the Freedom Fighters doing their best to undermine the rule of Mobius' dictator Dr. Ivo Robotnik (the origin of whom was shared with the promotional comic from 1991, an accident involving Chaos Emeralds and an egg), the details are all completely different with its own cast of characters and story arcs. Knuckles was still popular enough to get his own stories mind, but he never took on quite the prominence he did in the Archie stories (though he did get to do a little Hokuto no Ken cosplay). However, this wasn't just a fortnightly collection of Sonic stories, at least not at the beginning- as hosted by Megadroid, a robot mascot based on a Mega Drive, Sonic the Comic gave readers news on the latest Sega goings-on, reviews of the hottest new Sega games (and a disproportionate amount of Domark games early on), reader artwork and letters, the odd special feature or two on things like Sega events in the UK and interviews with celebrities about Sega...



... And non-Sonic stories based on the big Sega franchises of the 1990s!

You see, for the first 80-or-so issues, Sonic the Comic would have the Sonic story as the main focus, sure- it was always the first thing past the Control Zone which had Megadroid's intro and the Sega charts- but there'd also be other multi-part stories (usually in six parts with some exceptions) based on other Sega or Sega-adjacent series. This started from the very first issue with Shinobi and The Legend of the Golden Axe stories told in six parts, with an eight-part Wonder Boy story joining them in #2, and from then on when one story arc would conclude, it'd be replaced by a brand new series or a continuation of a previously-seen franchise. However, over time the Sonic stories and spin-offs would take their place- #16 had the first Tails solo story, #25 introduced Sonic's World to expand the world-building of the Sonic stories, then from #60 onwards there'd be only one non-Sonic story per issue, and then from #79 onwards the only non-Sonic story would be Decap Attack (yes, really, it was probably the most popular non-Sonic story judging from some of the replies in Speedlines) intermittently until #132, by which point it was purely Sonic stories and Sonic reprints.

Don't be mistaken, this isn't a complaint on my part- it'd be pretty silly for me to get miffed about a magazine called Sonic the Comic having too much Sonic in it. Sonic, as a whole, was a franchise that had a lot more material for the staff to use outside their own creations, seeing as it was pretty much the only one regularly getting new games at that point beyond late releases like Streets of Rage 3 and Ecco: The Tides of Time, plus the series was at the peak of its popularity. Not that this stopped the staff from creating their own material and characters, of course, but they had more stuff as a basis, if you get what I mean. Many of the other series represented certainly had to get creative, sometimes veering wildly off-course (Shining Force) or indulging in a little bit of ultra-violence (Streets of Rage) with some honestly shocking things going on in a kid's comic! Still, the Sonic stories are absolutely the lasting legacy of Sonic the Comic, to the point where fans would create Sonic the Comic Online to continue the plot threads left dangling in the original, as well as a few non-Sonic Sega stories but not that many. As a result, what were originally billed as the 'Sega Superstars' stories that backed up the Sonic stuff tend to be a little less remembered, outside of trivia like the Decap Attack strip outliving almost everything else.

Well, Gaming Hell does like to highlight the underdog, so you can probably see where this is going...



See, across 2024 I decided to start reading Sonic the Comic on my little Twitch Channel as a read-a-long series, which you can also find as a playlist on YouTube and it's been quite the journey. At the time of writing, I've only read the first 100 issues [Knowing our bloody update schedule, we'll have finished it like 5 years ago by the time this goes up. - Ed] but I did see pretty much all of the non-Sonic stories outside of the later Decap Attack instalments, and in between getting unhinged by seeing the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 constantly in and out of the official sales charts and spreading the word that the best original Sonic the Comic character is, in fact, Simpson the Cat (tied with non-binary icon Tekno the Canary), I found myself enjoying the adventures of the other Sega franchises to, ahem, varying degrees. So I figured, why not give the Sega Superstars of StC (as the cool kids call it) a real spotlight on Gaming Hell? That's what we'll do, then. We'll take a little look at each franchise represented with listings of artists, writers and letterers involved, which issues you'll find each story arc in, a brief story synopsis and what I thought about it as well as the first page and a few panels to give you a sense of what they look like.

Before we get started, a bit of housekeeping. First, this listing includes one-shot stories that were printed in Sonic the Poster Mag (a separate Mega Production- their words, not mine- by Fleetway that had less pages but came with a poster) as well as the extra strips in the Eternal Champions Special and the Shinobi one-shot seen in the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbook that shared a lot of staff with StC (I've placed it at the front of the Shinobi timeline for convenience, but an exact release date for the yearbook is unknown). It doesn't include anything related to Sonic or the original characters that came from the Sonic strips- no Captain Plunder, alas- or the two one-shot Megadroid comics. Second, the dates for each issue provided are perhaps a little inaccurate- they're taken from the date given on the cover, which is different from the print dates given at the end of each issue, but I figured the cover date would be the most 'official' date (although later they start publishing two dates covering the two weeks, to keep it consistent I've left this as the later date of the two). Third and most importantly, I am not a comic book aficionado, but I've done my best to look into the other comics that the many artists and writers for StC worked on- many of them had worked previously for British comic institutions like 2000 AD and Tornado (as an example, this blog post on British comic letters has several people that would work for Sonic the Comic like Tom Frame and Stephen Potter) and even Marvel UK (Brian Williamson, a frequent contributor, worked a lot on The Real Ghostbusters comic by Marvel UK in particular, a nice find). What I'll do is provide links to more information on them and their works such as portfolios and obituaries that you can click in the credits listing for each series, so please peruse them to get a better idea of how broad their work was. However, please keep in mind I'm a comic book beginner, but I'm having fun, so I hope you understand.

With that waffle out the way, let's read some comic books! About video games!






THE DARK CIRCLE
One-Shot 1, The Official Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbook
1993 (Exact Date Unknown)

THE FEAR PAVILION
Arc 1, Issues #1 - #6
May 19, 1993 - Aug 7, 1993

THE ART OF WAR
Arc 2, Issues #19 - #24
Feb 18, 1994 - April 29, 1994

WAY OF THE WARRIOR
One-Shot 2, Sonic the Poster Mag #4
April 23, 1994

POWER OF THE ELEMENTS
Arc 3, Issues #47 - #53
March 17, 1995 - June 9, 1995



Script:
Alan McKenzie
Art:
Jon Howard & Jim Howard (One-Shot 1)
Jon Howard (Arc 1, Arc 2, Arc 3)
John Howard & John Burns (One-Shot 2)
Lettering:
Ellie deVille (Arc 1, Arc 2, )
Tom Frame (Arc 3)


He is Joe Musashi. A ninja master, fighting a one-man battle against the evil terrorist organisation, Neo Zeed. Among countless other crimes, they killed his sensei and kidnapped his one true love, Naoko. Though his mission is personal, he will not kill, for that would make him no better than they. Still, even the lowest ranks of the Neo Zeed are formidable... But those in the upper echelons of the organisation are the deadliest foes imaginable- kabuki masters, invisible ninjas and the dreaded Four Elements who wield bizarre magical powers. If Musashi has any hope of saving his lady love and ridding the world of their evil, he must travel across Japan to the many Neo Zeed hideouts, use all of his skills and most of all, his HARAGEI [A ninja's sixth sense, like radar! - Megadroid] to survive!



If you count the one-shot in the Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbook (which had the same artist and near-identical style to the comics), Shinobi is the second most common Sega Superstar story, tying with Eternal Champions at five, and one of two that began in the first issue. It makes sense why, Shinobi III came out a few months after the comic began so it was fresh in people's minds (from Arc 2 onwards, he even switches to his Shinobi III outfit) and the comic itself is presented in a pretty unique way- it doesn't use white panel edges, but a black backdrop with ornate and detailed borders, and the realistic artstyle by prolific comic book artist Jon Howard and interesting narration style by future 2000 AD editor Alan McKenzie make it stand out. Some of it is a little sketchy with its stylised font and usage of Japanese terms with Megadroid 'helpfully' translating them (my favourite being 'ronin' translated as 'unemployed samurai') but it doesn't descend into casual '90s racism, thankfully. What it does do is slowly become less interesting, at least if you ask me- the last story arc, The Four Elements, has a final battle between Musashi and the titular ex-Neo Zeed lieutenants now working for the Yakuza, but it feels like they ran out of steam, being more akin to a generic American superhero comic than anything else. Not inherently bad on its own, but it felt like it missed what gave the earlier strips their charm. At the very least, it ends on a relatively conclusive note with the vague promise of more to come, but as you will see, this becomes a pattern for these stories.





CITADEL OF DEAD SOULS
Arc 1, Issues #1 - #6

May 19, 1993 - Aug 7, 1993

PLAGUE OF SERPENTS
Arc 2, Issues #13 - #18

Nov 13, 1993 - Feb 7, 1994



Script:
Mark Eyles
Art:
Mike White
Lettering:
Elitta Fell (Arc 1 P1)
Richard Bird (Arc 1 P2 - P4)
Tom Frame (Arc 1 P5 - P6)
Ellie deVille (Arc 2)


Three brave warriors of the land of Yuria- Barbarian Ax=Battler, Amazoness Tyris=Flare and Dwarf Gilius=Thunderhead- threw themselves into many mighty battles for the Golden Axe, first against the tyrant Death=Adder and then against the insidious Dark=Guld. Victorious, they thought their troubles were over, but they had only just begun! First, they encounter Sorcerer Blackspell who steals the Golden Axe and wishes to revive Dark=Guld to lead his army to take over the land! Not long after, Gilius' home Rockguard is under attack by the cult of Cobraxis, leading the group and Gilius' sister Yuki=Plantcharmer into yet another battle to save the Dwarf queen, Silpantia=Dragontamer and get the Golden Axe back to the King of Yuria!



The other Sega Superstars story that began in the first issue, Golden Axe didn't go on for as long as Shinobi but honestly, I think it's my favourite of the two. Mark White's artstyle works great for the Conan the Barbarian-style vibes the strip is going for with action and adventure abounding, and it ties in with the games fairly nicely with the three main protagonists, magic attacks, Bizzarians and even a few enemies like the potion-carrying elves, minotaurs and Dark=Guld from the second game. It's also got a lot of stuff created just for the comic including new antagonists and locales, alongside some really gnarly monsters, especially the second arc that has buff human snakes and a human-headed snake god. It also has a lot of humour mostly from Gilius who thinks with his stomach and has some pretty good one-liners throughout, as well as Blackspell and Guld fusing together and arguing, plus Gilius' hot-tempered sister. It makes sense that this series was written by Mark Eyles who also created the fan-favourite Badnik Army Repair Functionaries, Cam & Bert as it has a similar sense of humour. Weirdly, the staff clearly had it in for poor old Ax=Battler, as he spends a lot of time away from the main action be it knocked out, lost, dragged away by eagles or wandering around in a hypnotised daze because of a magic snake. Poor guy. The ending is a little open-ended but sadly it never continued afterwards- I imagine the lack of a release of Golden Axe III outside of Japan and disinterest lead to it being replaced by other things- but that's a shame, of all the early series that ended on open notes, this is the one I wanted to see more of!





WONDER BOY IN DEMON WORLD
Arc 1, Issues #2 - #9
June 12, 1993 - Sept 19, 1993

WONDER BOY IN GHOST WORLD
Arc 2, Issues #22 - #27
April 1, 1994 - June 10, 1994



Script:
Mark Eyles
Art:
Bojan Djukic
Lettering:
Steve Potter


He's the Wonder Boy, but don't call him that- his name's Shion, thank you very much! After saving Monster World from the threat of Biomeka, Shion has more worlds to visit and foes to face- first, he finds himself on a journey to Demon World to save an entire village of innocents, kidnapped by the wicked Grimomen to become his loyal demon army, but is almost turned into a demon himself via a cursed arm! He then journeys to the Skyrock Mountains where he's heard there's ghostly trouble afoot, and so there is- ghost dinosaurs, hungry for revenge on humans and plotting to reclaim the world of the living! Can he and his new friends, Lukout the Cosmologist and Wordsmith the Poet, make it out before they turn into ghosts themselves?



Oh, poor Wonder Boy. Although advertised with traced-over art from the Japanese Game Gear release of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap showing the animal transformations, they aren't here and this is more specifically based on Wonder Boy in Monster World starring Shion (although he does make a remark about being transformed in the past, which isn't quite correct but we'll let it slide). It's a completely fine bit of adventure with the Demon World arc being my favourite of the two, mostly because even as weird as the concept of ghost dinosaurs sounds, the Demon World arc is just weirder with all the muscle-bound demons and things like Shion punching himself in the face with a cursed arm and human prisoners chained to walls slowly turning into demons begging for death, Aliens-style. The art by Bojan Djukic (his name is repeatedly misspelled in the comics themselves, but this blog post confirms his name) doesn't seem like a very good fit for Wonder Boy unfortunately- it's very detailed and really shines when drawing the very buff demons (seriously they are absolutely shredded, and you know what, good for them) and dinosaurs, but a cutesy character like Shion doesn't really do well in that style with a lot of very awkward and unintentionally-amusing faces. The teaser for a Witchery World arc is left dangling, but that may have been for the best.





KID CHAMELEON
Arc 1, Issues #7 - #12
Aug 21, 1993 - Oct 30, 1993

BACK TO UNREALITY
Arc 2, Issues #54 - #59
June 9, 1995 - Sept 1, 1995



Script:
Michael Cook
Art:
Brian Williamson & Steve White
Lettering:
Tom Frame


Casey is your typical kid, nothing out of the ordinary about him- he plays Sega video games, just like you! His mom's told him to go and introduce himself to the new girl next door, Suzi, what a buzz-kill! Still, Suzi plays games too, so Casey visits the arcade to see her go off into the new virtual reality machine, Wild Side, with local jerk Brad... And then they don't come out. Lured into the machine, Casey is greeted by a mysterious voice calling him Chameleon, and now he's fighting for his life! His only hope is his mysterious power- whenever he says Chameleon, he changes into one of many forms, like the samurai Red Stealth, the homicidal murder machine Maniaxe, the perceptive Eyeclops... Each with their own strengths and strange powers, he'll need all the help he can get to try and save Suzi (and, in the second arc, Brad) from the many threats and traps in Wild Side!



I'm no friend of Kid Chameleon's game, but you know what? The comic actually surprised me, I really enjoyed it! The brief snatches of Casey in the real world present him as a bit of a dork, a kid trying too much to be cool and absolutely crashing and burning when trying to impress Suzi which is pretty charming, and even his interactions with his mom are kinda funny. Once he's in Wild Side, he's fighting absolutely bizarre enemies like giant rats, cyber gorillas and gigantic Xenomorph-esque flesh-monsters, many of which absolutely aren't in the original game, and a lot of effort was put into making the transformations stand out- they usually change his speech patterns (which, unfortunately, does lead to the comic's one bit of casual '90s racism, although it's subtle- Red Stealth talks in what seems to be broken English) and the comic designs for them go in super hard, with Micromax being a horribly-detailed human-fly hybrid, Cyclone being a musclebound superhero and Juggernaut being an angled tank monstrosity (Williamson did a lot of superhero comics and White did sci-fi and the like for 2000 AD, so they're good picks for artists). The second arc also gets pretty interesting with the voice turning out to be playing Brad (who's become a jailer of other kids stuck in the game) and Casey against each other, but unlike the slightly open ends of the other strips, this concludes with a massive cliffhanger as Casey remains trapped in the game and challenges the voice... Then we never saw the strip again. Unlike Wonder Boy, I definitely would've wanted more!





STREETS OF RAGE
Arc 1, Issues #7 - #12
Aug 21, 1993 - Oct 30, 1993

SKATES' STORY
Arc 2, Issues #25 - #30
May 13, 1994 - July 22, 1994

FACTS OF LIFE
One-Shot 1, Sonic the Poster Mag #7
Oct 22, 1994

THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN
Arc 3, Issues #41 - #46
Dec 23, 1994 - March 3, 1995




Script:
Mark Millar (Arcs 1 & 2),
Nigel Kitching (Poster Mag + Arc 3)
Art:
Peter Richardson
Lettering:
Tom Frame


The City. Ten minutes into the future. Crime rules these streets, with almost the whole damn police precinct in the pocket of the criminals... Except for a good few. After being beaten nearly to death for squealing on corruption in the force, Axel Stone's fellow cops Blaze Fielding and Max Thunder tell the chief to shove it, and decide to take matters into their own hands, with reluctant assistance from Officer Murphy, one of the few other remaining cops not on the take. After Axel recovers (ninjas tried to kill him in hospital, but they're wimps, man!), they also get joined by teenage troublemaker Skates and, much later, Officer Feroccio. Even with a team like this, things aren't easy on these streets- heavily-armed gangs, bomb threats, vengeful ex-police assassins and even a game betting on the gang's lives as every punk in the city tries to waste them. With the team's Battle Wagon in tow and their fighting skills though, they have what it takes to survive on the... Streets of Rage!



Oh here we go. Tied with Decap Attack as the most well-liked strip among my streaming audience, Streets of Rage is probably the strip that pushed the line hardest on what Fleetway were allowed to get away with in a children's magazine. Sure, fighting in the streets is one thing, but this has mild swearing (including the phrase, 'Traffic was a bitch!'), multiple scenes of cops being punched in the face by the protagonists, an entire arc that takes heavy cues from The Warriors and, perhaps my favourite part, a bad guy being killed at the end of an arc by being dropped into molten metal and screaming in agony. That last one was written by one of the more famous people to work on StC, Mark Millar of Marvel and DC fame! The only thing done to make it vaguely feel like it's made for kids is the 'battle wagon' that looks like it should've been part of a range of SoR toys, available at your local Woolworths or John Menzies. As silly as my summary is, I think SoR really sells its gritty atmosphere with the incredible art by Peter Richardson, making it feel very raw, untamed and distinctive- the only strip that stands out more (in a positive way- we'll get to Pirate S.T.C. shortly) is Decap Attack, really. Again, we get the open end where the good guys win but there's a vague promise of more adventures, but considering they got three arcs and a poster issue out of it by the time the non-Sonic strips were winding down, I think it had a good run. Surprisingly given the quality of the art, it was the last thing Peter Richardson worked on in comics until his graphic novel Cloud 109 in the late 2000s.





STARRING CHUCK D. HEAD!
Arc 1, Issues #10 - #15

Oct 10, 1993 - Dec 11, 1993

WHO KILLED CHUCK!
Arc 2, Issues #34 - #39

Sept 16, 1994 - Nov 25, 1994

THE REPLACEMENT
One-Shot 1, Issue #40

Dec 9, 1994

MONSTER OF THE YEAR
Arc 3, Issues #66 - #68

Dec 8, 1995 - Jan 5, 1996

THE HEADLESS SNOWMEN
One-Shot 2, Issue #69

Jan 19, 1996

... And then twenty-six more after that

Click here for the rest
NANNY KNOWS BEST
One-Shot 3, Issue #70

Feb 2, 1996

THE BRIDE OF CHUCK D. HEAD
One-Shot 4, Issue #71

Feb 16, 1996

THE PUMPKIN CHASER
One-Shot 5, Issue #89

Oct 29, 1996

BORIS & THE BOOK
One-Shot 6, Issue #90

Nov 12, 1996

THE LEGEND OF MR. CUDDLE BUNNY
Arc 4, Issues #91 - #93

Nov 26, 1996 - Dec 24, 1996

THE HUNGRY GUEST
One-Shot 7, Issue #94

Jan 6, 1997

DEAD!
Arc 5, Issues #97 - #99

Feb 18, 1997 - March 16, 1997

WALLS
One-Shot 8, Issue #101

April 15, 1997

LIFE WITH THE SNAGSBYS
One-Shot 9, Issue #102

April 29, 1997

FUNNY OLD GAME
One-Shot 10, Issue #104

May 27, 1997

WISH
One-Shot 11, Issue #105

June 10, 1997

CAUGHT BY THE PREFECTS
Arc 6, Issues #107 - #108

July 8, 1997 - July 22 1997

DREADED POOPLE PLAGUE
One-Shot 12, Issue #109

Aug 5, 1997

THE TOOTH
One-Shot 13, Issue #110

Aug 19, 1997

THE MALTESE BUDGIES
One-Shot 14, Issue #111

Sept 2, 1997

THE FEARLESS MONSTER HUNTERS
One-Shot 15, Issue #113

Sept 30, 1997

CHUCK AND THE CHEESE FACTORY
Arc 7, Issues #114 - #115

Oct 14, 1997 - Oct 28, 1997

RETURN OF THE PUMPKINS
One-Shot 16, Issue #116

Nov 11, 1997

CHRISTMAS CAROL II
One-Shot 17, Issue #119

Dec 30, 1997

CHUCK'S SAVINGS
One-Shot 18, Issue #120

Jan 13, 1998

LOVE IS BLIND
One-Shot 19, Issue #123

Feb 24, 1998

DOG
One-Shot 20, Issue #125

March 24, 1998

MOTHER
One-Shot 21, Issue #126

April 7th, 1998

THE DUNGEON
One-Shot 22, Issue #129

May 19, 1998

BIRTHDAY
One-Shot 23, Issue #130

June 2, 1998

DECAP-MAN
Arc 8, Issues #131 - #132

June 16, 1998 - June 30, 1998




Script:
Nigel Kitching (Arcs 1 - 3 & 8 + One-Shots 1, 4 & 17 - 23)
Nigel Kitching & Richard Rayner (Arcs 4 - 7 + One-Shots 2 - 3 & 5 - 16)
Art:
Nigel Kitching (Arcs 1 - 4 & 6 - 8 + One-Shots 1 - 7, 11 & 14 - 23)
Mick McMahon (Arc 5 + One-Shots 8 - 10 & 12 - 13)
Lettering:
Steve Potter (Arcs 1 - 2 & One-Shot 1)
Tom Frame (Arc 3 + One-Shots 2 - 4 & 13)
Ellie deVille (Arcs 4 - 6 & 8 + One-Shots 5 - 12, 14 - 15, 17 - 19 & 21 - 23)
Elitta Fell (Arc 7 + One-Shots 16 & 20)


In the heart of Transylvania, you'll find the castle of one Dr. Frank N. Stein (born in Cardiff, ignore that fake German accent) where he and his cynical and bone-idle assistant, Igor, bring the dead back to life! Well, at least one dead person, or what's left of him- an unlucky double-glazing salesmen later called Chuck D. Head due to a freak accident in the lab that left his head shoved into his chest. The leftover brain matter that couldn't fit in his actual head went into the sentient skull, Head, so when Chuck isn't gut-punching with his own cranium, he's throwing Head around instead (much to Head's dismay). From foiling the plans of Max D. Cap and his accountant, being tortured by the endless story books of Mr. Cuddle Bunny by Nanny, visitng the Slurp-O-Cheese Factory and even going to Hell itself, no adventure is too disgusting or strange for this motley crew!



If you know anything about Sonic the Comic outside of the Sonic stories, you probably know that Decap Attack was the longest-running non-Sonic strip... But you might not know just by how much it outstripped everything else. Shinobi and Eternal Champions had a good stab at it with five stories apiece, but Chuck D. Head buried 'em all with a staggering thirty-one stories consisting of eight arcs and twenty-three one-shots. International readers will no doubt be confused- why did the Western adaptation of Vic Tokai's Magical Hat game for the Mega Drive get such a long life in comic form? Simple: comic relief. Well, that and it was probably popular with readers. While the other series in StC were mostly action-focused with mild comic moments, aside from the slightly more action-y first story arc (even keeping track of Chuck's lives like a video game), Decap Attack is pure horror-comedy, with the three characters going about their lives surrounded by nonsense. I like to think it was an outlet for the Kitching and Rayner to just do whatever they wanted, make it as British as possible (complete with references to Noel's House Party and Blockbusters) and get away with as many gnarly monsters and as much goofiness (and bad German accents, alas) as they could fit on a page. Did I mention they actually go to Hell itself? They sure do! There were only two artists on this one- Kitching did the majority of them with McMahon (a prolific 2000 AD artist) doing some during the middle- but both nail the silly horror vibe really well, and it's incredible they were able to get so much out of a single Mega Drive localisation. Genuinely had me laughing out loud at points, it's bloody great.

The most shocking thing? It almost didn't happen- the Yahoo! Groups posts reveal that Decap Attack was a replacement for a planned Chuck Rock series that StC was ultimately unable to get the rights for. Can you imagine? I'm sure the StC version would've been better than the one in Max Overdrive, but more on that later...






ECCO THE DOLPHIN
Arc 1, Issues #13 - #18

Nov 13, 1993 - Feb 7, 1994

RETURN OF ECCO THE DOLPHIN
Arc 2, Issues #60 - #65
Sept 15, 1995 - Nov 24, 1995



Script:
Woodrow Phoenix (Arc 1),
Alan McKenzie (Arc 2)
Art:
Chris Webster (Arc 1 P1 - P2),
Steve White (Arc 1 P3 - P6)
Lettering:
Woodrow Phoenix (Arc 1 P1 - P2),
Tom Frame (Arc 1 P3 - P6, Arc 2 P3 - P6),
Elitta Fell (Arc 2 P1 - P2)


Ecco, the dolphin with the five scars stars on his head, has been ripped apart from the rest of his dolphin pod by a massive tornado... But there's more to this than just wind. Alone, he heeds the guidance of the mysterious glyphs that lead him through time and to the library of Atlantis. where he gains the power and knowledge to defeat his foe that took from him his friends and family... The Vortex! Beyonders from another star, they seek to strip the Earth's seas of life to sustain themselves. Ecco, later allying himself with The Asterite, must stop the machinations of The Vortex and save his watery kith and kin from being an intergalactic meal!



Ooh, isn't Ecco lucky, the deliphinidae defender gets two page images on the left there, what's the deal? The first two parts of the first arc have a more traditional comic book artstyle to them with solid colours, but from the third part onwards this is ditched in favour of a watercolour style that gives the strip a dream-like aesthetic, which fits a lot better and really makes it stand out. As for the strip itself, I wouldn't put it among Streets of Rage or Golden Axe but I quite like it, perhaps not entirely for reasons intended by the staff. Ecco's style of speech is a little... Overdramatic for a dolphin, shall we say, like declaring, "When next I return, I shall being tidings of the aliens' defeat!" to one of the game's glyphs, "Foul destroyer, your day is done! The end is upon you!" before unleashing his Atlantis powers and, well, some of the text you see in the panels above and below. It also gets a bit silly at points, such as a polar bear fighting a giant jellyfish or when Ecco has to move the Black Pearl from the bottom of the sea but, as the captions inform us, he must be careful because it's highly radioactive. With all that stuff going on, the art does a great job of making it feel almost dream-like, it's very effective! It ends on a vaguely conclusive note with no obvious cliffhanger beyond the vague threat of the Vortex returning in the future, but Ecco did not grace the pages of StC again. Much like the game, the presentation really sets it apart from other strips in the magazine, so it's worth a read even if you're not a huge fan of the source material.





THE ETERNAL CHAMPIONS
Arc 1, Issues #19 - #24
Feb 18, 1994 - April 29, 1994

DEATH ISN'T FOREVER
One-Shot 1, Eternal Champions Special

March 4, 1994

REALITY CHECK
One-Shot 2, Eternal Champions Special

March 4, 1994

BRAINS & BRAWLS
One-Shot 3, Eternal Champions Special

March 4, 1994

LARSON'S REVENGE
Arc 2, Issues #37 - #40
Oct 28, 1994 - Dec 9th, 1994




Script:
Michael Cook
Art:
Brian Williamson & Steve White (Arc 1 P1 - P2),
Brian Williamson & Bambos Georgiou & John M. Burns (Arc 1 P3 - P4),
Jon Howard (Arc 1 P5 - P6, One-Shot 1, Arc 2),
Brian Williamson & Stephen Williamson & Dondie Cox (One-Shot 2),
Brian Williamson & Bambos Georgiou & Una Fricka (One-Shot 3),
Lettering:
Tom Frame (Arc 1, One-Shot 1, One-Shot 2, One-Shot 3, Arc 2 P2 - P4),
Ellie deVille (Arc 2 P1)


Brought together to fight one another, but now fighting as one to save the universe. Nine warriors who died too soon in their own time- assassin Shadow Yamato, cyborg kickboxer R.A.X. Cogswell, bounty hunter Johnathan Blade, acrobat Jetta Maxx, caveman Slash, Atlantean warrior Trident, cane-fighting warlock Xavier Pendragon, vampire Mitchell Middleton Knight and catburglar Larcen Tyler- were gathered by the Eternal Champion himself to fight for only one to get the chance to go back and prevent their untimely demise, helping to correct the timeline and stop the machinations of the mysterious evil Overlord. However, they convince the Eternal Champion to let them all live and fight as a team, as different as they all may be. From stopping arms-dealer Nakano from creating the technology that made the Overlord to making a ruckus in the crime business of Old Chicago, no enemy can put a stop to the Eternal Champions!



It is the '90s, and Sega has a one-on-one fighting game to push. Shinobi and Streets of Rage may have had some one-shots outside of the numbered issues, but Eternal Champions got a full one-off magazine all to itself, complete with detailed movelists and profiles of every character (detailed enough that stream viewer TheOpponent created a relationship chart for you to use in your fan fiction), an interview with Michael Latham himself and three one-shot strips in addition to the two arcs in the main magazine. Lucky! One problem that immediately presents itself is the fact that there's a lot of characters to cram into only five pages per instalment, so the first arc is particularly messy and comes across less as its own thing and more like StC trying to have its own X-Men-esque series (which is a little funny, seeing as the Sonic stories would later parody American superhero comics). However, once the characters are introduced, the comic improves a lot- the main one-shot in the Eternal Champions Special has a lot more pages to work with, and the others are short but focus on a small selection of the characters. This approach is also used for the second arc that sends everyone back to their times and sees Larcen (misspelled Larson) back in Chicago but visited by Shadow Yamato who's on a mission given to her by the Eternal Champion. There were no further adventures for the Champions after this, but having smaller-scale adventures with a selection of the cast definitely fits the smaller page count format well, so at least they had the chance to do it a handful of times before Eternal Champions exited the public consciousness.





PIRATE S.T.C.
Issues #28 - #33
June 24, 1994 - Sept 2, 1994



Script:
Stephen Bliss
Art:
Stephen Bliss
Lettering:
Steve Potter


Sabotage. Subversion. Sega. From the television to the radio and now the printed page, do not underestimate the power of PIRATE S.T.C.! Fezhead and Skull are here to take over your eyeballs as they find the biggest TV-watching zombies in the land and subject them to THE MISSION, a nightmare video game challenge. Sackhead, Flame, Grrrr, Bob and their chicken Dog must survive bizarre battles against the likes of Vangar the Spatula Constructor and Granee 8 Ball who can turn people into bubble bath containers. To be this weird takes AGES, to be this wacky takes SEGA! This program is brought to you by Poodle Noodles.



Oh. Oh no. Oh, no no no. Of all the strips in StC, Pirate S.T.C. was the only one that, while I was streaming my read-a-longs, I grew to strongly dislike reading. The viewers weren't fans either! This is based very loosely on the Pirate Sega TV ads that were running in the UK and Europe at the time- an advertising 'cinematic universe' if you will that includes 'The Barber' starring Steven O'Donnell of Bottom fame who would go on to reappear frequently in the ads, and were so successful that Sega created a tape to teach kids how to do marketing just like that. 'Very loosely' are the operative words, as the concept of invading someone's TV is there, the skull and Fezhead are there, it's just... The rest is complete nonsense. There's a vague narrative of the unwilling characters fighting against strange opponents, sometimes interspersed with fake adverts just like the TV spots, but it's too much, too extreme, too chaotic to get anything coherent out of it. I feel this would be better as maybe a single-page comic or perhaps just as the single, narrative-less posters that they did to promote the thing (it was built up over a few issues, surprisingly) because the art is certainly unique and there's a lot of wild stuff in there, but I felt my brain start to dribble out my ears by the end of it. And then there was the bit where I just blurted out "What is this? Why is this happening?!" halfway through reading it. That's usually a bad sign. Whoof. Anyway, a funny coda to this story is that the artist, Stephen Bliis, went on to do iconic artwork for the Grand Theft Auto series then made a line of NFTs. A fitting end, and yes, it is the same Stephen Bliss!

Behind the scenes, as explained on a post on the Sonic the Comic Mailing List by Roberto Corona, Pirate S.T.C. was a last-minute replacement for a ToeJam & Earl-based strip which an artist was 'a fair way into [making] before it became apparent that the licensing wasn't in place, nor was it going to be". As a result, Pirate S.T.C. was 'knocked out pretty quickly' (their words, not mine) and you know what, I can believe it. I almost feel a little bad for them.





BRING ME THE HEAD OF COACH BRIKKA
Issues #31 - #36
Aug 5, 1994 - Oct 4, 1994



Script:
Steve White & Brian Williamson
Art:
Anthony Williams & Brian Williamson & Steve White (P1),
Anthony Williams & Brian Williamson (P2 - P6)
Lettering:
Tom Frame


Brought to you by our kind sponsors Diet Smeg- the paste of a new generation, see label for information on the unexplained baldness class action lawsuit- we welcome you to the Mutant League's Super Bowel XXIV! The Midway Monsters and the Slaycity Slayers are out there spilling their guts (quite literally) for supremacy, but legendary captain Bones Jackson and firey Coach Brikka give the Monsters the edge. Only half the story is on the field, though- Zalgor Prigg, CEO of Toxicon, has bribed the Slaycity Slayers' K.T. Slayer to bring him the head of Brikka (it comes off when he celebrates a win) so his scientist Dr. Wizz can extract his tactical mind and put it into his Mobile Combat Chassis Battledroids and dominate the league. With help from the Screaming Evils' The Razor Kid, can Bones get the head back and win the big game or will he end up in the Hole of Flame?



The first third-party game to get a strip is a bit of an unexpected one, isn't it? If you'd asked me to guess what game would make a good strip, I wouldn't have gone for Mutant League, but this turned out to be a pleasant surprise, especially since it was running alongside the second half of Pirate S.T.C. and served as a valuable tonic to that thing. This mostly takes character names and designs from the source game (and the TV show, surprisingly- although they have different designs, both have a villain called Zalgor Prigg!) and goes all-in on the violence and carnage with a nice dollop of humour (I particularly liked the fake adverts mid-game and the team ending up at the Winter Olympics and the dangerous Freestyle Clay Bobsleigh Shooting event), telling a completely chaotic story of sports, skeletons and high-calibre armaments. The fact that it's commentated by sportscasters Bob and Chuck throughout, like it's a real game of American football anyone has any hope of keeping up with just adds to the absurdity of it, and the art really suits the tone. What's nice is that this has a lot of full-page panels to really show the grotesque monster designs off, such as the other Mutant League teams squaring up to Bones at the end of the first part, giving the art a chance to shine (again by Williamson and White, just like Kid Chameleon, with Anthony Williams, another big 2000 AD artist, contributing too). Probably the most surprising strip of them all, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this one but it was fun!





MARKO'S MAGIC FOOTBALL
Issues #41 - #46
Dec 23, 1994 - March 3, 1995




Script:
Lew Stringer
Art:
Gary Andrews
Lettering:
Elitta Fell


Marko's just a normal kid living in the not-very-normal town of North Sterlington, but he's got a secret- after his football fell into a barrel of mysterious green sludge, it's become magical, able to return to his foot whenever he kicks it and also defeat anything else touched by the sludge. He's just gone for a kickabout for the afternoon, but Captain Smirk from the future tells him he has to prevent the Earth's ruination by stopping the machinations of Colonel Brown, the one behind the green sludge who wants to use it to conquer the world! With Brown's lackeys all around town and the green sludge corrupting anything it touches, can Marko save the day before his mam calls him home for his tea?



The second of three third-party games to get comic strips, this one forms the backbone of my own conspiracy theory that Sonic the Comic was secretly funded by Domark because their games got a frankly undue amount of attention, far more than any other third-party publisher. The first issue had a review of James Bond: The Duel (that compared it favourably to Neighbours of all things) and it even got a full guide in The Q Zone! Now, Electronic Arts may have got their Mutant League in here, but that's at least a franchise people remember fondly- Marko's Magic Football isn't in the same league. [Oh, a sports joke, I get it. You're fired. - Ed] I won't comment further on the game itself- maybe another day- but for whatever reason, benign or sinister, it got a full six-part story here. I don't envy the people working on this, as they had so little material to work with, so they made the best of it- the game's art-style is a bit different from the one used here but it captures the same kind of spirit, and many of the same enemies and characters appear- but it's mostly a load of nothing of Marko going through the different areas of the game with a boss fight at the end, save for a scene where Marko gets shot and killed by a sniper but comes back unscathed because he had an extra life. If anything, it feels more like it'd fit in better with earlier issues- the way it tries to incorporate the game's mechanics and elements into its story certainly makes it feel that way. It's better than Pirate S.T.C. by virtue of having a coherent plot and some out-of-pocket moments that genuinely got a laugh out of me, but I don't feel particularly strongly about this one, one way or the other.





LAST OF THE ROCKET KNIGHTS!
Issues #53 - #58
June 9, 1995 - Aug 18, 1995



Script:
Nigel Kitching
Art:
Keith Page
Lettering:
Steve Potter


Sparkster, the brave opossum who lead the Rocket Knights of Elhorn, returns from a bit of adventuring to find things have changed in Zebulos City. Shocked by a Wanted poster branding him Public Enemy No. 1, he discovers to his horror that the wicked King Gedol and his cronies have taken over the capital, bringing Princess Shelly and the inhabitants under his powerful spell of corruption to bring out the evil in them and suppress the good! The entire palace is now under his thrall, with orders to snuff out Sparkster on sight! Thanks to his enchanted rocket knight armour, Sparkster is immune to the spell, so he alone must break Elhorn free and stop Gedol before he marries Princess Shelly and makes his rule absolute!



The final third-party game to get a strip, this is also the only strip out of all of them, as far as I'm aware, to get any kind of modern reprint- all physical copies of Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked published by Limited Run Games include a mini comic book including all six parts as they got permission from the original staff involved. This is an excellent adaptation, taking plot elements from the second Mega Drive game paired with fantastic art from Keith Page that absolutely nails the feel of the characters, especially Sparkster himself. I find myself not really having that much to say about this one because it speaks for itself really, if you've any interest in Sparkster or Konami then it is absolutely worth looking this up, and it's appropriate that it ended up included in a Rocket Knight re-release because you could've put this in as a bonus with the original games and it'd fit like a glove. Beyond anything else, I think this is the third-party strip that most fits the style of Sonic the Comic- talking animals having action-packed adventures? Yep, just right for this kind of magazine. This was even meant to get a follow-up arc but, according to artist Keith Page's blog, Fleetway 'forgot that they had to renew the publishing rights' and so it never happened. If it had, it would've been the only third-party game to get a second arc, and surely one of the final non-Sonic, non-Decap Attack stories. What a shame!





THE CURSE OF ZEON
Issues #73 - #78
March 15, 1996 - May 24, 1996



Script:
Nigel Kitching
Art:
Martin Griffiths
Colouring:
Gina Hart
Lettering:
Tom Frame (P1 - P4),
Steve Potter (P5 - P6)


Granseal Island in the Kingdom of Rune has been peaceful ever since the Shining Force, once lead by the now-elderly Max and accompanied by his robot friend Zynk, sealed away the evil Zeon in the abyss. However, Baron Kadavaar and his cronies have been looking for a way to free the fiend, and the mysterious tower in the nearby Ribble, with its mysterious armaments and weapons from a long bygone time, could be the key. Once Zynk learns of their plans, he warns Max, but he's too old to be adventuring. It's up to Zynk, Max's grandson Bowie, his elf friend Taya and the warrior centaur Chester to form a new Shining Force to stop Kadavaar from using the ancient sorcery, the 'nuclear bomb', to bring Zeon back and spell doom for the world!



Yes, this is based on the Mega Drive games, as the Saturn instalment wasn't out just yet. Regardless of its basis, this is very much outside my wheelhouse, but while I've always wanted to play the early Shining Force games, I've just not got around to it. This, it turns out, is not an impediment for reading the Shining Force comic as aside from some shared names, character concepts (swordman with a quiff, a robot and a centaur man) and a vague fantasy setting, it basically does its own thing. Shining Force super fans might not appreciate this, but as an outsider, I think it's actually a pretty interesting approach to the idea of a fantasy world taking place many years after a modern society's collapse, what with Kadavaar and his henchmen interpreting things like guns as magical, ancient objects and the countdown of a nuclear bomb as an incantation of strange symbols. It strikes you as very odd at first but I think it pulls it off by the end. I feel the main issue this strip has is that the story just doesn't have enough room to breathe- a big fantasy story like this probably could've done with more than six parts at five pages apiece, it just feels like it goes by too quickly (to the point where Max's fate is weirdly sped-along and you barely get time to realise he's probably a ghost now, it's confusing). Perhaps the staff got this sense too, as it sets itself up for a follow-up story that never came to pass- Shining Force was the final non-Sonic, non-Decap Attack story, so this is where our coverage ends.




As a bonus, here's a table outlining what issues have each part of every non-Sonic series. Colour-coded, too!

ISSUE NUMBER - - -
#1
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #1
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #1
-
#2
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #2
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #2
Wonder Boy in Demon World #1
#3
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #3
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #3
Wonder Boy in Demon World #2
#4
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #4
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #4
Wonder Boy in Demon World #3
#5
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #5
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #5
Wonder Boy in Demon World #4
#6
Shinobi - The Fear Pavilion #6
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Citadel of Dead Souls #6
Wonder Boy in Demon World #5
#7
Kid Chameleon #1
Streets of Rage #1
Wonder Boy in Demon World #6
#8
Kid Chameleon #2
Streets of Rage #2
Wonder Boy in Demon World #7
#9
Kid Chameleon #3
Streets of Rage #3
Wonder Boy in Demon World #8
#10
Kid Chameleon #4
Streets of Rage #4
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #1
#11
Kid Chameleon #5
Streets of Rage #5
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #2
#12
Kid Chameleon #6
Streets of Rage #6
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #3
#13
Ecco the Dolphin #1
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #1
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #4
#14
Ecco the Dolphin #2
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #2
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #5
#15
Ecco the Dolphin #3
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #3
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head #6
#16
Ecco the Dolphin #4
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #4
#17
Ecco the Dolphin #5
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #5
#18
Ecco the Dolphin #6
The Legend of the Golden Axe - Plague of Serpents #6
#19
Eternal Champions #1
Shinobi - The Art of War #1
#20
Eternal Champions #2
Shinobi - The Art of War #2
#21
Eternal Champions #3
Shinobi - The Art of War #3
Eternal Champions Special
Eternal Champions - Death Isn't Forever
Eternal Champions - Reality Check
Eternal Champions - Brains & Brawls
#22
Eternal Champions #4
Shinobi - The Art of War #4
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #1
#23
Eternal Champions #5
Shinobi - The Art of War #5
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #2
#24
Eternal Champions #6
Shinobi - The Art of War #6
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #3
Sonic the Poster Mag #4
Shinobi - Way of the Warrior
#25
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #1
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #4
#26
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #2
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #5
#27
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #3
Wonder Boy in Ghost World #6
#28
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #4
Pirate S.T.C. #1
#29
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #5
Pirate S.T.C. #2
#30
Streets of Rage - Skates' Story #6
Pirate S.T.C. #3
#31
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #1
Pirate S.T.C. #4
#32
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #2
Pirate S.T.C. #5
#33
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #3
Pirate S.T.C. #6
#34
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #4
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #1
#35
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #5
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #2
#36
Mutant League - Bring Me the Head of Coach Brikka #6
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #3
Sonic the Poster Mag #7
Streets of Rage - Facts of Life
#37
Eternal Champions - Larson's Revenge #1
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #4
#38
Eternal Champions - Larson's Revenge #2
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #5
#39
Eternal Champions - Larson's Revenge #3
Decap Attack - Who Killed Chuck! #6
#40
Eternal Champions - Larson's Revenge #4
Decap Attack - The Replacement
#41
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #1
Marko's Magic Football #1
#42
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #2
Marko's Magic Football #2
#43
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #3
Marko's Magic Football #3
#44
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #4
Marko's Magic Football #4
#45
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #5
Marko's Magic Football #5
#46
Streets of Rage - The Only Game in Town #6
Marko's Magic Football #6
#47
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #1
#48
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #2
#49
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #3
#50
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #4
#51
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #5
#52
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #6
#53
Shinobi - Power of the Elements #7
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #1
#54
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #1
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #2
#55
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #2
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #3
#56
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #3
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #4
#57
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #4
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #5
#58
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #5
Sparkster - The Last of the Rocket Knights #6
#59
Kid Chameleon - Back to Unreality #6
#60
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #1
#61
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #2
#62
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #3
#63
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #4
#64
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #5
#65
Return of Ecco the Dolphin #6
#66
Decap Attack - Monster of the Year #1
#67
Decap Attack - Monster of the Year #2
#68
Decap Attack - Monster of the Year #3
#69
Decap Attack - The Headless Snowmen
#70
Decap Attack - Nanny Knows Best
#71
Decap Attack - The Bride of Chuck D. Head
#72
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #1
#73
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #2
#74
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #3
#75
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #4
#76
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #5
#77
Shining Force - The Curse of Zeon #6
#78 - #88 - - -
#89
Decap Attack - The Pumpkin Chaser
#90
Decap Attack - Boris & The Book
#91
Decap Attack - The Legend of Mr. Cuddle Bunny #1
#92
Decap Attack - The Legend of Mr. Cuddle Bunny #2
#93
Decap Attack - The Legend of Mr. Cuddle Bunny #3
#94
Decap Attack - The Hungry Guest
#95 - #96 - - -
#97
Decap Attack - Dead! #1
#98
Decap Attack - Dead! #2
#99
Decap Attack - Dead! #3
#100 - - -
#101
Decap Attack - Walls
#102
Decap Attack - Life with the Snagsbys
#103 - - -
#104
Decap Attack - Funny Old Game
#105
Decap Attack - Wish
#106 - - -
#107
Decap Attack - Caught by the Prefects #1
#108
Decap Attack - Caught by the Prefects #2
#109
Decap Attack - Dreaded Poople Plague
#110
Decap Attack - The Tooth
#111
Decap Attack - The Maltese Budgies
#112 - - -
#113
Decap Attack - The Fearless Monster Hunters
#114
Decap Attack - Chuck and the Cheese Factory #1
#115
Decap Attack - Chuck and the Cheese Factory #2
#116
Decap Attack - Return of the Pumpkins
#117 - #118 - - -
#119
Decap Attack - Christmas Carol II
#120
Decap Attack - Chuck's Savings
#121 - #122 - - -
#123
Decap Attack - Love is Blind
#124
#125
Decap Attack - Dog
#126
Decap Attack - Mother
#127 - #128 - - -
#129
Decap Attack - The Dungeon
#130
Decap Attack - Birthday
#131
Decap Attack - Decap Man #1
#132
Decap Attack - Decap Man #2






So, that's all of 'em. What are we to conclude?

If you've read this site for long enough, you might get the sense that I'm not one to wax nostalgic too much, and that applies to old comics I have hazy memories of just as much as old games. Cracking out "Cor blimey, them old comics, eh? Remember Chewits?" and calling it a day wouldn't really do anything and certainly wouldn't have made a good read. With that in mind, I hope this overview of the non-Sonic stories in Sonic the Comic has been interesting and that I've been able to properly highlight all the people who worked on them every two weeks. I have a lot of respect for those who can form part of a team to put together comics like this, because I sure can't, and while some of them were definitely not great (Pirate S.T.C., I am looking at you) I think overall the quality was pretty high. Besides, it was a lot of fun to go back and properly look at these stories, see how I felt about them and figure out what they took from the games and what they came up with whole-cloth, especially since a lot of these franchises had very little material to work with outside what was in the games and the manuals. Getting a single arc, let alone multiple arcs and one-shots for some of them, took a lot of work, and that's part of the reason I wish there were more! Of course, Sonic getting the comic to himself was inevitable (the clue's in the title) but some of these definitely could've done with more instalments to finish their stories off. Guess we should be thankful we got as many as we did, huh~

... Still, let's do a bit of wishful thinking, what other Sega franchises would've been suitable for the Sonic the Comic treatment? This was a question asked in the Data Strip at the end of each issue until they got rid of it in #94, so let's have a think about it, for fun. Looking at the list, most of the major Sega franchises on the Mega Drive in the middle of its life (read: no Vectorman, that's too late) are represented except perhaps Phantasy Star, so a multi-arc series based on that would've been interesting, although it'd definitely need time to get going if they wanted to represent the scope of the RPG series properly. The main thing that comes to mind is that there's no real representative for the Saturn era- I imagine if there was going to be a Saturn-based series, it would've been around the time Shining Force was running, so you'd perhaps only fit in one before it went to all Sonic and Decap Attack. In that case, I think either a Virtua Fighter strip or one based on NiGHTS (preferably with art by Steve White of the Ecco series to get that dream-like feel) would've been a good fit. In fact, NiGHTS got a lot of coverage in the magazine, so I'm a little surprised they didn't go for it... I suppose there's also Bug! or Clockwork Knight, but they might've been stepping on Decap Attack's toes in terms of comic relief strips, we can only speculate. Feel free to reply on Bluesky or whatever with the Sega game you would've liked to see in StC, and don't say Comix Zone, that's a story to be told in a different medium!

As our final note, here's the results of a stream survey after my read-a-long of the first 100 issues. Which were the viewers' favourite strips? You can find out!



And now, it's that time, folks!
EXTENDED PLAY!





As a bit of a fun extra... Some other British comics related to video games and, by extention, Sonic the Comic.

Observant readers (that's a joke, you're all observant, aren't you) may have noticed that two of the series given stories in Sonic the Comic- Decap Attack and (groan) Pirate S.T.C.- were replacements for series that slipped through StC's fingers, as explained by Roberto Corona in Messages #8910 and #8192 on the Sonic the Comic Mailing List. Specifically, Decap Attack was a fill-in for Chuck Rock and Pirate S.T.C. was a fill-in for ToeJam & Earl. They would've been a pretty good fit for StC, wouldn't you say? What if I were to tell you, though, that British-made comics based on these games were made...?



... Well, twice for one of them, actually. Chuck Rock was featured as a single-page comic strip in Look-In, a magazine aimed at kids primarily about ITV television programmes, but the only scan I could find online is from the final issue. Very little info is out there about this unfortunately- while you can find scans of the '70s and '80s editions of Look-in online, the '90s issues are far less documented. What we do know is that final instalment is signed M + G Gray, referring to Maureen and Gordon Gray, a prolific comic duo with limited information on them on this blog post that, in the comments, have some of the Chuck Rock strips attributed to them. For the purposes of science, I grabbed a copy of Look-In from 1993 for cheap off eBay and found that not only was there a Chuck Rock comic, there was also a multi-part James Pond comic?! A screenshot of James Pond 3: Operation Starfish appears in Issue #41's Megadroid story (alongside Desert Strike and Gunstar Heroes) so I wonder if StC ever considered F.1.5.H.'s finest agent as a story too? In any case, both the Chuck Rock and James Pond are available above for you to peruse at your leisure.



Anyway, on to the main attraction. Max Overload! was a very short-lived general video game magazine published by Dark Horse International of all companies, and when I say 'short-lived' I mean 'there were only two issues'. Ouch. Luckily, they've been scanned and are available to reead on archive.org on these pages and also Sega Retro. However, alongside the news and reviews, there were four comic strips scattered across each issue based on Lemmings, Greendog the Beached Surfer Dude!, Chuck Rock and ToeJam & Earl. Yes, Chuck Rock got two different comic strips. Aren't those last two funny, though? With these two issues releasing across February and March of 1994 and the Decap Attack series starting in October 1993 and Pirate S.T.C. starting in June 1994, it's entirely possible that Dark Horse managed to snipe Fleetway out of getting the comic rights for these two series, as well as bagging the ultra-popular Lemmings and, uh, Greendog. When discussing this on my stream, several chat members jokingly referred to them as 'Sonic the Comic's cast-offs' and, well, that's not wrong, although at least one member of StC staff (Ellie deVille) did work here too. Rather helpfully though, the magazine has little biographies of all the artists and writers at the back, so you can read them for more context on their other work, but I'll share a few links here and there. Let's just cover all of them very briefly (yes, even Lemmings and Greendog, why not) in the order they appeared in each issue...

Oh, and needless to say, none of the plots of these stories (except for Lemmings, which didn't really have one) were resolved. Cliffhangers, the lot of 'em!




LEMMINGS



Script:
Dick Hanson
Art:
Graham Manley
Lettering:
Ellie deVille
Lemmings is easily the best of the bunch, sticking very closely to the established art-style of the series. The stories have two different framing devices which is a bit unusual- the first is a professor going over historical mentions and legends of the Lemmus Ludicrus (before being hit by a Lemming and subsequently getting run over by a bus) and the second is a group of explorers finding ancient murals and hieroglyphics depicting Lemmings in a cave (before they leave, missing out on a frozen Cave Lemming before it's fried to bits). This means it's less narrative-focused and more a collection of little vignettes of Lemmings in different time periods and countries getting up to all sorts of accidental mischief (albeit with a tasteless joke about Lemmings having too many kids while 'on the dole', oof). The art definitely sells this one, my favourite of the Max Overload! comics by a wide margin.



TOEJAM & EARL



Script:
Anne Caufield
Art:
Woodrow Phoenix
ToeJam & Earl is based fairly loosely on the first game, with intergalactic jamsters from the Planet Funkotron ToeJam and Earl crash-landing on Earth and trying their best to communicate with the bizarre, baffling locals (including several enemies and characters from the game like the dentist, carrot wiseman and hamsters). It's... Fine. The artstyle's colourful albeit simple (which fits the game, to be fair) but the script's maybe a little too cheesy for me. As odd as it sounds, there's an understated, kind of dry humour to the text in the original game- ToeJam has a certain way of explaining things in the intro, with Earl offering single-word additions, and I dunno, this piles on too much dialogue to get that across. I realise this is a bit silly, like I'm adjusting my monocle and guffawing, "This is beneath me" as I read and enjoy Sonic the Comic, essentially Sega advertising for children, but I didn't really get much out of this. Maybe you'll like it, though.



CHUCK ROCK



Script:
Cefn Ridout
Art:
David Lyttlton
Chuck Rock takes places after the second game, with Chuck's wife Ophelia and son Chuck Jr. captured once again alongside his plans for the Model T Fjord, the future of neanderthal travel. And the big race is tomorrow!! Hijinx ensure, and this is certainly the most unique looking of the comics with a very exagerrated albeit rather gross look to everyone and everything. To be completely fair, while the Look-In strips were probably more palatable, if you're going to make a full-on Chuck Rock comic you may as well make it faithful to the games and have the characters all be as offputting and grotesque as possible. There's also a scene where Chuck tries to eat his own son because he's hungry. One for the true Chuck Rock aficionado out there.



GREENDOG



Script:
Ian Carney
Art:
ILYA
Greendog is of course based on the self-charicature created by Ric Green for a board game, Surf Trip, that was later used as the protagonist for Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! because Michael Latham (of Eternal Champions fame) liked the board game's character. Despite having the disadvantage of being on a Mega Drive platformer I would charitable describe as 'a video game', this one is actually kind-of alright- a bit reliant on pop-culture references, perhaps (including a single panel presented for use with 3D glasses) but some of the jokes are pretty good (like the local dinosaurs being more interested in their media profiles due to them being popular at the time) and the presentation is vibrant with lots of exaggerated poses and expressions, even if you only see Greendog's eyes for a single panel. Also, I won't lie, it is incredibly funny to me to find out the Greendog comic was drawn by someone who later did How to Draw Manga books, two things that couldn't be more different. You could've run this in Sonic the Comic and it'd be maybe a few rungs below Mutant League but certainly better than some of the other Max Overload strips!






Let's end on my favourite Sonic panel.



And my favourite Decap Attack panel.

It was a tough choice between this and the panel where Knuckles says "Oh, flippin' heck!", believe me.