IDW Sonic Issue #52 and Annual 2022 Review

 

Woah, this was an eventful month for IDW Sonic. We got more teases for the upcoming Scrapnik Island mini series and 2 new comics in a single month! You don't see that all that often nowadays. But without further ado, let's talk about both of these.

ANNUAL 2022

Annual 2022 was so amazing. Before this, we were basically stuck with the main story for almost a year. Not to say it was bad but that meant that characters that wasn't a part of said story were not used, like at all. The annual comic finally gives us a glimpse of nearly all the unutilized characters from the past year. Let's start with the Blaze storyline.

This story was very good. I love that Marine the Racoon was seemlessly readded to the Sonic universe with this. And it turns out I'm not the minority in this either. I missed this pirate freak a lot. I wish we get to see more adventures in Blaze's Dimension just for her alone.

And my favourite part... Blaze and Knuckles interacting with each other. Like heck yeah! It was about time these two (the guardians of their respective dimension's emeralds) actually talked about the responsibility that comes with said task. This story was such a delight to read for sure. (8/10)

The next story featured two robot boys duking it out for their different ideals in mind. This story is basically them beating the shit out of each other and I wouldn't have it any other way. (6/10)

''Hero Camp'' was fun but not too noteworthy since it's mostly Orbot and Cubot doing their usual goof ups. (4/10)

This one is MEGA good tho. ''Future Growth'' finally makes fan favourite character Silver, reappear in the comic. And the implications of this story is... scary to say the least. But dude, when Espio of all characters went to help Silver, I lost my shit. I realized that they were doing a Rivals 2 reference and I could not be happier with this pairing.

Espio's look on life also beatifully teaches Silver how to outgrow his insecurities is very well done. This was one was such an amazing story with beatiful artwork by Evan Stanley herself. (10/10)

The Jet the Hawk story felt like an inside shitpost that we weren't a part of. Not to say it was bad but I didn't vibe with this one all that much. People on Twitter were hella mad with this story saying shit like ''oh this doesn't fit Jet's personality'' etc. The fact that we argue about ''joke character being out of character'' is just sad. (5/10)

The final story of the annual, while not being the best one of the bunch, easily had my favourite artstyle out of all of them. The characters are so expressive here, just look at a few examples.

Back to the plot tho, since #48 I wondered what happened to Rough & Tumble after escaping the facility. Apparently they just continued on their gig till they get arrested again in this story. Tangle and Rouge are the highlights of this story tho. It's fun to see Rouge continuing her gig too. Overall, I like this story but I wish it ended with ''Future Growth'' instead since it felt like an actual finale. (7/10)

ISSUE #52

This issue continues where the previous issue left on. With Sonic, Tails, Belle and a newly woken up Kit escaping from the city. It's very interesting that Sonic was the one that actually changed Kit's mind about his obsession. I sure hope people don't ignore this moment and continue complaining about ''big oof''

(sorry for the shit quality on this issue specifically since I couldn't find high quality versions of this issue)

Surge continues to be an awesome antagonist as always. I'm very interested on how they are gonna handle her big scheme to destroy the entire fucking world.

Especially with this new equipment that boosts her powers. Next issue's cover kinda spoiled the surprise of a fan favourite character but oh well.

Also this little fucking savage moment will be in my brain for like the next couple of days cuz holy shit, what a dick.

Also this banter was pretty cute, I like how visibly Metal is embarrassed by Sonic's words.

And the issue ends with the tease of Surge confronting Eggman. Overall thoughts? SOO much better than Issue 51. Issue 51 felt like a slug fest but this was very well written and the artstyle was very good as well. Probably right next to #48 as one of my favourite issues of this series. (9/10)