Other-M, "Through the Looking Glass"
issue #20, pages
Review written by Matthias Johnson, a.k.a. Tergonaut
E-mail: tergonaut@aol.com
Summary: The giant battle we were prepped for last issue
commences with almost as many plot twists as character deaths.

Credits:
Cover: Marie-Lu
Story: Ian Potto
Art: Lady Laguna, pages 1-28; Jimi NoOman, pages 29-31
Lettering: Lady Laguna, pages 1-28; Ian Potto, pages 29-31
Other-M logo design: Jeffrey "Z-Kara" Houston

Note from Tergonaut: I'd like to announce that this is going to
be the last review I will do for the Other-M comic for a while,
probably for good.  Why?  Well, that's because I'm going to be
going on a two-year mission for my church, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints, starting February the 12th of 2003.

Plot: It is the day of the big battle between the rebellion and
the Guardian's forces, and both armies have been assembled
together.  The rebellion's forces are small compared to the
Guardian's Legion, and a Legionary scoffs at what he sees in the
binoculars.
     Meanwhile, the rebels are preparing a weapon which they have
been keeping secret until this time...Bean's gift, which is
several cartloads of explosives that Bean created using his
magic, which explains the corruption of his arm.  Unfortunately,
it turns out that the explosives are linked to Bean, and since
Bean is dead, that basically means they're useless.  However,
Bunnie says a quiet prayer in her heart, and somehow, the
explosives set off, taking out a huge portion of the Guardian's
forces.
     Then the Guardian commands his forces to attack, and the two
armies crash into each other in horrible conflict, the rebellion
fighting valiantly against the Legion.  Noticing that his aerial
forces have hesitated somewhat, Knuckles gives the order again to
Duze Remmington to attack, which Remmington receives before
closing that communication link and opening a new one, taking
this opportunity to proclaim to his men that they should fight
against the Guardian and end the tyranny in which Knuckles has
abused the rights of the echidnas for his own ends.  While many
of his men remain loyal to the Guardian, there are also many
echidnas who are dissatisfied by the conditions forced upon them
by their military service, and suddenly the aerial units are all
firing at one another, causing even more chaos amidst the
tumultuous fray.
     Despite these setbacks, the Guardian's forces still number
with many tanks, and Vector is momentarily confident of victory
until he notices that Mighty is missing from where he was
standing aside the other Chaotix.  The reason, discovered all too
late, is because Mighty has used his tremendous strength to lift
up one of the tanks with his bare hands, tossing it at another
tank to cripple both of the tanks.  Mighty is impressed with the
bravery of Remmington, to the point where he has gained the
courage to fight against the Guardian.
     The fighting is terrible as Antoine slashes his sword
through a Legionary, unaware that he is about to be attacked from
behind by another echidna.  But just in the nick of time, the
echidna is tackled by a dingo, and one of the rebels shouts out
and points to the dingo population that is rushing out of the
city to join the battle, tipping the odds even further into the
rebellion's favor.
     The Guardian is actually stunned by this freakish turn of
events against him.  But despite his losses thus far, he calmly
draws the Sword of Acorn from his scabbard and gives a mental
command.  In a single instant, every single civilian echidna in
Echidnaopolis, man, woman, and child, becomes a zombie under the
sway of the Guardian's mental powers, and they march out of the
city, their single-minded assault being a complete surprise to
the rebellion.
     However, the Guardian suddenly has something far more
personal to worry about when a shadowy figure drops behind him,
drawing a sword and ready to use it to take his life.  But he
notices ahead of time and uses his powers to throw the assailant
across the room and stunning her with the force of the blow.  It
is the one we have known so far as Omega, but the Guardian takes
off her mask, thinking that he had already killed this person (it
was actually her brother, Alpha, who was killed by a punch from
Knuckles back in issue #10! -Matthias).  He gasps as he
recognizes that Omega is actually Sally Alisha Acorn, and as she
picks up her sword and attacks, he cries out to her to stop,
saying that he truly loves her and that he built his empire for
her.  However, since he had destroyed her family because of his
"love" for her, she's only too glad to try to kill him, and the
two continue their sword fight.
     Back on the battlefield, Sonic is battered and bruised, worn
out from all the fighting.  In a brief lull during the battle, he
tugs on the pant leg of a rebel and asks him where Antoine is. 
The rebel reports that Antoine is dead, then continues to say
that Bunnie was also killed, and that Rotor is leading the charge
against the final bastion of the Guardian.  Sonic dashes off
after the rebel mentions that Fiona is with Rotor, and approaches
the battle platform where the Chaotix and the remaining rebels
are.  He then tackles Mighty, who just got finished with bending
the last of the battle platform's cannons out of shape.  Sonic
demands to know what Mighty is doing, and the armadillo says
simply that he's doing what he should have been doing before,
fighting against the Guardian.  Suddenly, an aerial unit is
careening out of control toward Sonic and Mighty, an unconscious
Remmington in the pilot's seat.  Sonic barely manages to leap out
of the way before the vehicle crashes down right onto Mighty,
slaying both Remmington and Mighty in a terrible wreck.
     Vector calls on Julie-Su and Espio to get ready to fight,
but Espio is out of sight and Vector, frustrated by so many
traitors, doesn't see Rotor's knives until one of them is slashed
right into his stomach.  Before Rotor can do anything else, he
too is killed by a shot straight through his head from Julie-Su's
gun, and Vector and Rotor collapse together.
     Fiona makes a mad leap at Julie-Su from behind, and Sonic is
helpless to stop it as Julie-Su whirls around and blasts Fiona at
point-blank range.  Sonic picks the dead Fiona up in his arms,
and Julie-Su hesitates for a moment before firing again, this
shot aimed for Sonic.  But Sonic lifts Fiona's arm and the blast
strikes her roboticized hand, which automatically absorbs the
charge of the energy blast, and then Sonic aims the hand to
redirect the shot back at Julie-Su, hitting and killing her. 
Sonic then sadly holds Fiona in his arms even as the battle rages
around them.
     Back in the Guardian's palace, Knuckles and Sally are
fighting sword to sword until Knuckles uses his telekinetic
powers to slam Sally against the wall again, raising his sword to
slay her.  But he freezes, unable to kill the woman that he
loves, and it is that opportunity that she takes to recover and
stab him, killing him and then pulling her sword out of his body.
     But then suddenly, she too is killed when a shot comes from
the darkness nearby, and it is Miles who picks up the Sword of
Acorns and takes it into the inner sanctum of the now-deceased
Guardian via teleportation.  He first goes to the stasis bubble
containing King Acorn and hands him the Sword, which creates a
crown on the monarch's head.  Then, taking the Sword again and
entering in a code on a nearby computer, Miles teleports again
and vanishes.
     Back with Sonic, who is still holding the dead body of his
beloved Fiona, he notices Amy Rose, whose head is sparking from
the electronic devices attached there.  She tells him that it's
almost over, and we switch back over to Miles who has appeared
inside of the Master Emerald chamber.  Shouting out for the
destruction of the world, Miles stabs the Sword of Acorns into
the Master Emerald, causing a chain reaction along with the
computer that causes both Amy and King Acorn to cry out in sudden
fierce agony as something happens with the Master Emerald.
     Suddenly, a beam of raw destructive energy bursts forth from
the Master Emerald, piercing vertically through Mobius and
growing ever larger, consuming everything in its path.  Everyone
on the battlefield sees it coming, and Sonic asks Amy what they
can do in the face of this ever-expanding energy.  She tells him
that he can go home, and she gives him a kiss just before she,
Sonic, and Fiona are consumed in the blast along with the rest of
the Floating Island and Mobius.
     And then Sonic wakes up.
     He's back in Knothole.  Sally and Dr. Quack have apparently
been watching over him for the last three weeks, since he was put
into a coma by a malfunction in Dr. Robotnik's inter-dimensional
device rather than being transported to another world (Check out
issue #1 again to see what happened! -Matthias).  At least,
that's what they tell Sonic.
     But he's not convinced.  He's sure that he was there for
months, that it was real.  Sally and Dr. Quack try to tell him
otherwise, that he had just had a dream and that everything's
okay now, but he emphatically exclaims that it was real.  He has
to go back!  It was real!

Analysis/Opinion: I'll be darned.
     Okay, story time.  I accidentally read this issue before I
read #19, so I was freaking out this entire issue when it seemed
to me like they had jumped from #18 to this climactic battle
without any real explanation about what was going on.  That and
all of the events in this issue made it somewhat frantic for me
until I realized I hadn't read #19, so I went back and now it
makes a lot more sense.
     There are a few big obvious things about this issue that
people will notice and probably protest to, to a degree.  For one
thing, a lot of people died in this issue.  This is perhaps the
goriest issue to date in the entire series, what with important
characters dying left and right, many of them "on-screen" deaths
(although, mind you, it's only blood that we see, not detailed
gruesome guts).  Then there's this whole weird thing with Miles
stabbing the Sword of Acorns into the Master Emerald to destroy
the whole planet.  I would've figured that he wanted to take over
for himself rather than wiping out the planet.  And then there's
the ending, which brings up thoughts along the lines of "Aw man,
all that was a dream?!" or "Sally and Dr. Quack are trying too
hard to convince him it was a dream...what do they know about
this?" or even "Sonic's going insane!  Cool!"
     Okay, first we have the deaths.  Lots of deaths.  It's like
a parade of death in this issue, one major character going down
after another after another right in a row, bang bang bang.  It
kinda hurts to see these characters, who we've come to understand
and even sympathize with at times, both rebels, Legion, Chaotix,
and unaligned, suddenly mow each other down like in the final
episode of some anime series or something.  Some of the deaths
strike us as pointless, needless, like Remmington crashing down
on Mighty and killing them both.  Many Other-M fans probably
moaned or cried out loud when they saw their favorite
character(s) die, and I'd even bet that some of them protested
that the character shouldn't have died that easily or in the way
that they did.  This issue is a scary reminder that death is
something that can happen easily, that despite the security in
our lives there is the universal fact that no one is immortal and
that we can actually die fairly easily.  One might say it is
humbling.
     I think it was Espio who fired the shot that killed Sally. 
It didn't seem like something that Miles would do, since he
showed his preference for his magical abilities two issues ago. 
But Espio doesn't make an appearance after he disappeared from
the battleground, and it is Miles who picks up the Sword of
Acorns and starts teleporting here and there.  One question might
be, why the sudden use of teleportation?  Neither he or the
Guardian showed any inclination to that ability with their powers
before.  The only other characters who have teleportation are Amy
Rose, and Alpha and Omega.  I somewhat doubt that Amy Rose's form
of teleport is involved, and I'm not sure how it could be
connected to Alpha and Omega.  Perhaps it'll be revealed whether
there is any connection at all in later issues.  As for stabbing
the Sword into the Master Emerald, that doesn't seem like the
kind of action I would have expected him to take.  I sorta
thought he was more like a Snively to the Guardian's Robotnik. 
But it turns out that he seems to have a different motivation for
this action, one more powerful than even his own lust for power
or even his will to survive.  It seems like there is something
else going on here that we don't quite know about yet, perhaps in
connection with the way that Espio has been guiding the
Guardian's judgements (like in Other-M #19! -Matthias).
     I don't think that Sonic just had some kind of dream, only
to awaken and become insane in his original universe.  But I also
don't think that Sally and Dr. Quack are deliberately telling him
that he's delusional for some darker purpose of their own.  These
last three pages of the issue naturally have some connection with
the first issue in the series, perhaps the connection being that
whatever happened to Sonic, his mind, and his body had to do with
that device.  Those experiences that he had during his time in
the Other-M universe have definitely changed him in some ways
that will affect his relationship with the Freedom Fighters. 
It's kind of a depressing kind of ending as it appears to be that
the Other-M universe was destroyed and that Sonic now has to live
on like none of that had ever happened.  But I'm betting that
there's more to this than that, and perhaps he'll get a chance to
redeem himself.

Artwork: This issue's cover was done by Marie-Lu.  It depicts the
four major rebels, Fiona, Rotor, Bunnie and Antoine, on the upper
half with a lighter background while Miles and the Guardian are
on the bottom half with a darker background, Sonic skidding down
on his feet in between the two halves.  Very nice coloring
effects, giving several different hues to each characters fur and
apparel while giving them texture and not jarring the eyes.  A
fine cover, although it doesn't hint very well at what actually
goes on in the issue.
     Lady Laguna did the artwork for pages 1-28 of this issue. 
I've always kinda liked her art for Other-M, and once again she
does not disappoint.  The expressions of the characters
throughout the issue are clearly done to show their feelings,
their anger, their sadness, their determination and their utter
shock even as life's last breath is taken away from them.  That
is particularly important in such an issue as this.  I still
think that her depiction of Sonic's proportions are slightly off,
but in many scenes it isn't half as pronounced as it has been in
previous works done by her.  She did put in a cameo on page 16,
this time of Ian Potto himself as his fan character.  This is the
same "nameless rebel" that Sonic talked to before running off to
intercept Mighty and the others at the final stages of the
battle.  A very nice touch.
     Jimi NoOman did the work for pages 29-31.  The change to
color is particularly noticeable, creating the effect of
returning Sonic to his original colorful world where he was once
cast into shades of black and white.  The sudden difference in
viewpoint, making the characters appear larger to the reader's
eye, also seems to add to the more innocent nature of Sonic's
original dimension.  Sonic's reaction is drawn well, making him
look very unstable after watching friends kill and friends die
and then returning to his home dimension only to be told it was
all a dream.  The actual art seems a little wobbly here and
there, but in a way that adds to the overall effect of Sonic
coming back to a place of heroes winning against impossible odds,
good triumphing clearly over evil, and other such things that are
opposed to the grimness of the Other-M world.

Final Word: Sonic is back in his original universe, but he's
changed.  I'm sure he'll calm down soon, but the repercussions of
his experiences in the Other-M universe will now touch his life
in Knothole, perhaps forever.  I've always spoken about a light
that Sonic carried inside, that he had brought to the Other-M
world and gave hope for a brighter future there.  But now it
seems that the reverse has taken place, that a part of the
darkness of the Other-M world has found a home in his heart, and
he has now brought that back to his home existence.
     What will happen now?  I don't quite know.  My earnest hope
is that Sonic will be able to contend with the darkness in his
heart and overcome it, then find a way back to the Other-M world
and save it while finding a way to save his own soul from being
mixed between the two worlds and mentally tearing him apart.
     As I said above, this is my last review for Other-M, since
I'll be leaving for two years and won't be able to keep up with
the comic.  I'd like to thank Ian Potto for asking me to do these
reviews, for giving me the opportunity to express myself
concerning them and to hone my own abilities as a writer by doing
so.  It's been an honor to write these reviews and be entrusted
with this duty.  I just hope I'll be able to see all of what
happens later after I get back from my mission, although I'm even
now taking a look at the next couple of issues that have been put
out by Other-M, so I'm not going to be totally lost as to what
happened.  
     Well, guess that's it.  Thanks for reading this review, I
hope you enjoyed it along with my other reviews.  I'll be seein'
you folks later.
     -Matthias Johnson, a.k.a. "Tergonaut"