Other-M, "A Ray Of Hope"
issue #17, 24 pages
Review written by Matthias Johnson, a.k.a. Tergonaut
tergonaut@aol.com
Summary: After the death of Bean, Sonic and Predator Hawk try
to hold things together by forming a daring plan to win the
war against the Guardian.

Credits:
Cover: Ian Potto
Story: Ian Potto
Art: Rone
Lettering: Rone
Other-M logo design: Jeffrey "Z-Kara" Houston

Plot: The issue opens in the meeting room of the rebellion,
with Sonic and Predator Hawk sitting quietly at the table
under the lone harsh lightbulb that illuminates the room. 
Opening the door, Fiona, Antoine, and Rotor come in, and their
expressions are downcast.  Sonic welcomes them and then
immediately begins talking.  He goes over the fact that Bean
is dead, and that they were in a war which at any time could
be won or lost, so it was time to move on.
     Antoine immediately interrupts with an exclamation about
not forgetting Bean, who had been the leader of the rebellion
from the start.  Sonic immediately counters with, "Have we
forgotten Bark?" which is certainly a strong question.  Rotor
begins to argue back, but Fiona interrupts and points out that
nobody is more important than anyone else there.  Rotor makes
a bored wisecrack about Fiona siding with her boyfriend, and
Fiona gets up from her seat shouting.  Sonic tells Fiona to
calm down, and then he turns to Rotor and tells him to shut
up.
     It's Rotor's turn to stand up in anger as he begins to
shout, "WHO DIED AND MADE..." but then he winces as he
realizes his poor choice of words under the circumstances of
Bean's death, and then he tries it again, asking Sonic just
who made him the leader.  Sonic then tells Rotor that he could
always leave if he wasn't happy with the present situation,
and when Rotor reacts with a "What?" Sonic states that he's
trying to keep the rebellion from falling apart and that if
Rotor wanted to whine, he could do it on his own time.
     After asking Antoine if he's willing to listen, Antoine
asks if there is a plan to follow as Fiona sits down. 
Predator Hawk replies, "We do."  Antoine and Fiona readily
join for the plan, and Rotor testily sits down with a grunt of
"Fine."
     Sonic turns the time over to Predator Hawk, who outlines
the general situation with the rebellion.  Morale is extremely
bad thanks to such critical blows like the destruction of the
secret mountain base (back in issue #11) and the loss of Bark
(#11) and Bean (#16).  The only way to give the rebellion a
chance at finishing the war is to take out the Guardian.
     This naturally brings up questions, since the rebellion's
not in any shape for a direct assault on the Guardian himself,
but Predator Hawk's plan involves assembling an army.  He
explains that when the Guardian took over, he offered the
kingdoms of Mobius a chance in the form of retaining their
current rulers by deferring to his authority.  Only one
kingdom accepted those terms, and that was the kingdom under
Prince Charmey's leadership.  Predator Hawk believes that if
the rebellion puts a good enough presentation to the prince,
then he will provide the rebellion with the army that it needs
to take out the Guardian and end the war.
     Now the problem remains of how to get down to Mobius from
Angel Island.  Predator Hawk apparently has thought of that
already and tells the rebels to meet him at the hangars of the
Launch Base zone tomorrow.  Everyone is into the plan, and
Predator Hawk lays out the when and where for the pan to take
effect.
     The next morning, the four rebels (Sonic, Fiona, Antoine
and Rotor) are skulking in whatever shadow they can find,
obviously uncomfortable with being in plain sight.  Suddenly,
they are approached by Perry Quinn, and they panic and start
to run.  Quinn calls out after them, and they stop as they
finally recognize that it is Predator Hawk in his alter-ego as
Perry Quinn, the corporate suck-up to the echidnas.  After
some initial negative reactions, the rebels agree to come
along and get onto the plane.  Fortunately, thanks to a
deliberate error by Quinn, there is no security around the
plane, allowing the rebels to get onto it with no problem.
     A little later, Quinn heads into the cockpit and checks
with Harry (the dingo who happens to be Quinn's chauffeur from
issue #12).  Harry reports no problems and a takeoff countdown
of five minutes, so it looks like things are moving smoothly. 
At least, until Prelate Vector calls in through the airplane's
radio, politely ordering him to come out so that they could
talk.  Quinn and Harry exchange nervous glances, and then
Quinn heads to the door and takes a meaningful look at the
rebels before opening the door and coming down out of the
plane, approaching the Chaotix and the complement of
Legionnaires supporting them on hoverboards and hovercycles.
     It turns out that the Chaotix are investigating why the
trans-island papers were suspiciously misleading.  Quinn puts
on the innocent act as he explains that it was just a mix-up,
willing to delay his flight to the Golden Hive Province if the
Chaotix need it.  Of course, it might annoy the Golden Hive
representatives that he's going to arrange a trade treaty
with, a trade treaty that would bring new jobs for the
echidnas, but Quinn would rather have them annoyed than the
Chaotix angry.
     But then Espio suddenly tells him that it won't be
necessary to delay the flight.  The other Chaotix give him
questioning looks, but his returning gaze seems to be enough
to tell them that he knows what he's doing.  Looking somewhat
frustrated, Vector motions for the assembled Legion to leave,
and Quinn and Espio stand and watch while everyone else
leaves.  Espio's hand is suddenly on Quinn's arm, and he
sternly warns Quinn to be wary of the bees.  Quinn thanks him
for his advice, and the Prelate holds on for a moment longer
before letting Quinn go and walking off as well.  But as Quinn
climbs up to the plane once again, we can see the tiny device
that has been stuck onto the arm of his suit jacket.
     Sonic asks him once he boards the plane whether there
were any problems.  Quinn replies, "Not a one," using the
exact same phrase his own chauffeur had said in reply to the
same question.
     But the final scene switches over to the Chaotix, who are
huddled around a listening device, evil grins on their faces
as they listen in to the rebels and Quinn.

Analysis/Opinion: The air is still heavy with the mood caused
by Bean's death.  The death of someone like Bean is an
incredible pressure on everyone else, because it is not only
the loss of another fighter for the cause, but it is also the
cause of conflict.  After all, when the leader dies and has
left no clear successor, who shall become the next leader? 
Entire nations have crumbled in the wars begun by such a
question, and the tension is enough to have the rebellion's
core members bickering like children.
     Fortunately, Sonic and Predator Hawk already thought of
that.  While Sonic certainly hasn't made any claim to be the
actual leader of the rebellion, he has the experience as a
Freedom Fighter and the light of hope within him, which
probably moved him to work with Predator Hawk, who is
obviously the one who actually worked out the daring scheme
that has been concocted.  It seems that Sonic wasn't aware of
exactly who they were going to for help until Predator Hawk
actually named him.  Still, Sonic has essentially taken
command of the situation to minimize the damage done by Bean's
death, like any good leader should.
     The plan sounds almost insane.  The rebellion, which has
been smashed from their secret fortress and has lost two of
their most prominent leaders, is barely surviving.  While
Perry Quinn's corporation is surely a huge resource, it
doesn't seem likely that there will be anything to actually
offer Prince Charmy in return for his help.  The only
possibility that I see is that the rebellion try to convince
the prince that the bees will profit greatly from the death of
the Guardian.  Not exactly the best bargaining tool when
you're going into a kingdom that gave itself up to the
Guardian in the first place, but it's a better idea than
continuing the wave of terror that Bean had been advocating.
     Watching the rebels panic at the sight of Perry Quinn was
a riot.  Here we have this preened businessman openly
approaching four battle-hardened rebels, and what do they do? 
They start running like they had been discovered by a group of
Legionnaires!  Oh well, it's probably better that they didn't
try to kill him to keep their cover or something, because that
certainly would have made things extremely difficult from that
point on.
     Espio once again makes himself the lone wolf of the
Chaotix, taking matters into his own hands.  It is significant
that he seems almost autonomous as a Chaotix member, and it is
interesting as to why he warned Quinn about "the bees."  I
wonder, did Espio use that as a mere excuse for why he had
grabbed Quinn's arm, or does Espio have some sort of past with
Prince Charmy and his kingdom of Mobian bees that prompted him
to tell Quinn that?  The enigma of Espio grows.
     One thought for the future is that it may yet be possible
that Perry Quinn to avoid being automatically classed with the
rebels and executed with them (if it comes to that).  It
depends entirely on whether he doesn't say anything that would
incriminate him as a direct supporter of the rebellion,
because if he does, then he can't claim afterwards that he had
been forced by the rebellion to provide them with the plane
and information.
     The ending for this issue struck me as being a very
appropriate comic book-ish cliffhanger-type ending.  Here we
are, wondering whether it will be possible for our heroes to
accomplish their goal when we know that their every word is
being listened to by the enemy.  It's just that this general
type of cliffhanger has been used before in official comic
books, and it is a mark of this comic's growth that it too has
ended an issue in such a way.

Artwork: Ian Potto returns as a cover artist for this issue. 
We have Antoine, Rotor, Fiona and Sonic all together, Fiona
and Sonic holding hands, with Predator Hawk enfolding them all
in his wings.  They all have their eyes closed, mostly likely
in sadness after the passing of Bean.
     The cover is pretty good overall.  However, and this is
probably going to come across as impertinent since this is my
"boss" I'm talking about here...what happened to Sonic's and
Fiona's legs?  I suppose that having their legs out of the
picture is probably a better idea to maintain the general
balance of it, but it is a little weird that after a certain
point on their bodies, they just aren't there.  Okay, that's
my daily nitpick on that, on to the actual issue art.
     Rone is the artist for this issue, and overall I like
what I see.  She has done an excellent job of not only
matching the emotions and expressions to the lines of
dialogue, but in keeping the tension up during the Chaotix
section.  It was due to her work that the classic cliffhanger
was able to succeed in conveying that "Oh no, our heroes are
in trouble now!" feeling.  However, you're not reading this to
hear me praise her, so I'll get to my nitpicks.
     Sonic looks okay from the side, but it's almost like he's
gained a tall pointed head when it comes to viewing him from
the front or back.  His proportions are also in question on
page 13, where he's standing right next to Fiona.  I certainly
don't expect artists to change him into a more human shape,
but those noodle legs just stand out real bad when they're
made that long.  Then there's the eyelashes on the ladies of
this issue.  If some of you will recall, I mentioned in jest
once that Rone drew scary teeth onto Fiona in issue #2.  Now I
will rag Rone a bit by saying, "EEK!  SCARY MAKEUP!"  For the
most part, Fiona and Julie-Su look good, but in some panels
they get really flared eyelashes that are kinda creepy.  It's
especially something to give you goosebumps in the final
panel, where Julie-Su suddenly acquires lipstick along with
her huge eyelashes.  Frightening, frightening.
     Overall nice job, although I quiver in fear that Rone may
get her revenge on me by sending a joke piece of art starring
her scary makeup.  The life of an independent comic reviewer
is indeed a perilous one, not for the faint of heart.

Final Word: Okay, we've got a big fat problem consisting of
several little problems and a pretty decent medium-sized
problem.  How will the rebellion convince Prince Charmy to
lend them their aid in a climactic battle against the Guardian
and his Legion, without tipping off the Chaotix and the
Guardian and without being betrayed by the bees themselves? 
Will they get out of this alive?
     Well, I don't know about you, but I'm still firm in my
belief that Sonic carries a light from another world with him,
a light that may inspire Charmy to fight for the freedom of
not only his own people, but for all of Mobius.  And besides,
Sonic's had his fair share of dumb luck in the past, so maybe
he'll get lucky again, despite how grim things look to us
readers.