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So after perusing sonic retro a while back in search of interesting and unique mod's, I came across this image here: from what I could surmise it was some conceptualised artwork from when sonic heroes was being developed, in particular the creation of a flight type character for team rose who would be later known as cream the rabbit. In the end this led me to try my hand at drawing each of them, which inspired me to challenge myself by creating the following images ; first up is a drawing of cream quite, heheh, "beside herself" : (aren't I just hilarious?!) And the second is a sort of "what if?" combining a little bit of each design onto the finalised rabbit we've come to know: well seems I'm the first person to post visual artwork on the site as a post rather than a reply, feedback is appreciated and I hope I'm doing this right.

I originally posted the review in the Anti-Archie-Sonic group on DeviantArt and I have now posted it here with only one change and that is a negative point I didn't realize because I finished writing this review at four in the morning. So if the formatting seems weird it's because of DA. --------- Welcome to Tales from the Sonicverse where I review the Sonic Universe arcs since the reboot. Sonic Universe is a title I believe was launched to help flesh out the Sonic universe as there is only so much you can do while focusing solely on a single team. This has led to a problem of important plot points being introduced in Universe that aren’t adequately explained when they show up in the main title. But overall I believe the title has done its job of fleshing out the comic’s world adequately even if it could be done better. We start with Sonic Universe #55 and we are already off to a bad start with the title, Pirate Plunder Panic. This is most likely a nod to the Universe arc Treasure Team Tango in which all of Team Dark was widely OOC and Blaze was nerfed to shill Amy. PPP was not written by Ian Flynn but by the long-time artist, Tracey Yardley. The issue opens with Blaze giving a narration as to what is going on. Long story short, she is looking for the final Sol Emerald which is being held by some pirates in a ship made completely out of metal. Last we saw of Blaze she had two of the Emeralds but now she has six? Not going to show us the rest Yardley? During this we get Amy knocking away cartoon bombs the ship is firing, Cream saying she won’t hide anymore then she already has, and *sighs* Marine speaking in what I assume to be false Australian slang and forced nautical terms and she lives up to the title given to her by the comic of “Loudmouth Captain”. Whenever she speaks I imagine her voice sounding like someone doing a bad Steve Irwin impression and it isn’t help the fact that she doesn’t have a VA. Blaze orders Marine to bring her ship in closer so she can go aboard the enemy ship with Amy, Cream, and Marine protesting that she cannot go alone. While yelling at Cream, Amy saves Blaze from being hit by a bomb and then apologizes for losing her temper. I actually agree with what Blaze was saying, in this arc she and Amy are the only ones who show any fighting prowess plus I doubt Cream would be any good in a fight and Marine is probably the only one who can lead the incompetent bunch of koalas they call a crew. Plus, she ends up going over by herself anyways. After flying over to the ship, Blaze climbs up the ladder on the side of the ship and ends up running into Bean. Bean the Dynamite isn’t that bad in small doses but he is a major character in the arc and he started to grate on my nerves in the second issue. While Bean and Blaze sneak around on the ship and Marine blows herself up, Metal is informed the Blaze slipped aboard the ship and says he wants the loudspeaker. We cut back to Blaze while Bean gives his only funny line in the arc, “Would it kill you guys to get a continent or two?” Metal makes his ultimatum to Blaze, surrender or her friends die. Blaze tries to keep herself and Bean hidden and he responds by selling her out. When Blaze asks why he points out that he was working with a bounty hunter/assassin the last time they met so why wouldn’t he work with pirates and he is right, Blaze was pretty stupid to trust him. The scene ends with Blaze completely incinerating the pirates and telling Bean he will share their fate. I could go for some roast duck. Cutting back to Marine’s ship we learn that the ship is taking on water and is completely screwed. Then Cream suggests ramming them as it what Sonic would do which make sense considering the ship is pretty much lost, might as well cause as much damage as possible. Blaze surrenders so Metal won’t destroy her friends but she arrives after he finished counting and he says (after shooting it) “A cap’n has to make good on his word” and blows Marine’s ship to kingdom come. Blaze almost loses her cool when a named mook, Buckle, knocks Blaze out with a single blow to the head and then we find Captain Metal is a rebuilt Metal Sonic. Prior to the reboot Metal Sonic was an entire line of robots that were treated as tough cannon fodder, not a single character. Issue 55 honestly wasn’t that bad till the end. All it did was mildly annoy me until I saw Blaze get one shoted. Then I was enraged. Issue 56 opens with Blaze being carried in a cage by the pirates and Metal saying that as the cage is made of tungsten carbide and she won’t be able to melt it. This is a real chemical compound and has a high melting point of 2870°F or 5200°C and she could in theory be unable to melt her way out. As an added incentive to not try anything funny the other named mook, Swackle, uses his cane to send an electric current through the cage shocking both her and Bean who was sitting on the cage, which was kind of funny. We cut to the box containing Marine’s fireworks floating on the ocean and Amy smacks the lid off and Marine just starting freaking out. Amy tell her to stop talking. Yes, Marine if you could please by quiet for the rest arc I’d be happy. After trying to figure out what to do, Cream points out some fins are approaching them and Marine yells that they’re sharks and Amy responds by saying she has a hammerhead for them and jumps straight at a shark. Welp, Amy’s dead, too bad Marine and Cream soon followed and then Blaze does what she should have done just let out a big fire blast and kill all the pirates then break out of the cage at her own leisure. Of course that isn’t what really happens, turns out they were really dolphins and the trio starts riding them to the nearest island as Cheese was able to communicate with them. Back with Blaze, Bean asks Bark to make her a smoothie because she is sad. More importantly we get Metal’s backstory in the form of a sea shanty. Basically a robot doctor was making his normal rounds but when his ship came back Metal was on it and he killed their previous captain and thus is now the current captain. And I’ll admit the Blaze drinking the ridiculous looking smoothie got a chuckle out of me. When Team Rose, cause let’s face it that is what they are, arrives and Marine gets kidnapped the moment they enter the jungle by small creatures that she probably should’ve been able to overpower. “I guess we should saver her…” WOW Amy, just wow! I know I might have given Marine shit but it sounds like you would’ve left her if no one would’ve known. Can we feed Amy to the sharks? After hearing that the creatures are saying, “Help. Fire cat.” Amy realized they were taking them to Blaze. Meanwhile back at Metal’s fortress Metal basically goes, “I have an ultimate weapon Mwahahaha!” while Blaze snarks then tell him she will kill him. Outside the creatures makes a “human” ladder for Team Rose to climb up to the top of Metal’s fortress. Once they make it to the top Metal reveals his ultimate weapon which is the Wily Egg from the crossover now called the Egg O’ War and has cross bones and an eyepatch now. Cream flies Amy over to Blaze’s cage who is now being held by a crane. And Marine walks up to Metal and yells at him. Welp, time to add Marine to shark food pile. And the issue ends with revelation that Bean the Looney Tunes reject stole the Sol Emerald somehow despite Metal being only a few inches away from it the entire time. Issue 56 was terrible as it revealed that Blaze was once again nerfed to shill Amy. It is quite obvious Archie wanted to give Amy her own arc SO JUST DO IT! It probably wouldn’t be any good but at least good characters wouldn’t suffer because of it. Issue 57 opens directly where the previous issue left off, with complete chaos. “It’s been a very tiring day.” with you there Blaze. Out of nowhere Johnny, a villain from Rush Adventure, snatches the Emerald from Bean and flies off. Amy smashes Blaze’s cage after she weakened the bars with heat and the four fly off and were saved by the little creatures again, attacking Metal when he takes aim at them. Metal attacks his own crew and tells them to ready the sub in five minutes and to *sighs* release the kraken. Yardley, references don’t work when forced or lampshaded and you had a pirate go “He’s gonna say it!” which makes the reference really forced. Our heroes are unable to follow Johnny thanks to two of them being unable to fly. So they decide to jack Metal’s ship. We also get one of Yardley’s strengths as an artist as I honestly did laugh at Blaze’s expression when she insisted that she wasn’t afraid of heights. They fly down to the ship and Marine tells them that she I the new captain. When they ask why they should listen to her Blaze incinerates one and Amy compacts one with her hammer which provided some very good motivation. Johnny returns to Captain Whiskers’ ship and hands him the Emerald. If you want to know why I haven’t given them their backstory yet, it’s because I don’t care to. They have never had a proper appearance in the comic before and only appeared in one game, if Yardley doesn’t care enough to give their backstories then I don’t care either if they even have ones. All you need to know is that they work for Eggman Nega, who doesn’t even appear, but are planning on betraying him. Cutting back to our heroes when suddenly Bean and Bark walk up from below deck and Bark’s expression is pretty much how I feel about this entire arc. Bean claims to be captain because finders and keepers and he has the hat which Blaze then burns to a crisp which did get a laugh out of me. Before Marine and Whiskers can fire upon each other, the Kraken appears in between them and they fire upon it. Cream asks Bean to use a bomb to kill the kraken as nothing is hurting it. He agrees to only if he is captain which Blaze immediately agrees to much to Marine’s chagrin. Bean then somehow make an extremely large bomb appear out of nowhere that crushes him during his big speech needing Bark to throw it. The bomb blows up the kraken but Whiskers drops the Emerald which is grabbed by a hand reaching out of the ocean which is quickly revealed to be Metal who is now part crab. Issue 57 was slightly better but overall it honestly felt like it was just unnecessary filler. It felt like Yardley had a three issue story but was forced to make it four issues. Now onto issue 58 and finally the final part of this terrible arc. We open with a Mexican standoff between the three factions until they all yell fire. Blaze quickly flies over to Metal and while fighting him yells how insane he is as the Sol Emeralds are necessary to kept their world in once piece. He responds that his new ship can take him to other worlds so this one can rot. Not a bad plan except you salvaged the ship which means it was already defeated once and thus it could be defeated again. Once again Blaze it defeated much easier then she should’ve been and is taken to the Egg O’ War. Amy and Cream follow after while the others fend of Whisker and his crew. Inside Metal’s ship Blaze wakens in time to see Metal use the Emeralds to have his ship take to the skies again. We cut back to outside where Whisker and his forces retreat but not before sending a missile straight through the hull of Marine’s new ship. But Marine and Bark spy Bean on Metal’s sub yelling shiny robots running at the two named mooks who quickly abandon ship just to get away from him saying the long walk back to their base would be worth it, with the two of you there. So Marine is now the proud captain of a submarine. Back with Blaze getting the remaining Sol Emerald power drained out of her forcibly when suddenly we have Cream yelling out Metal is a big meanie serving as a distraction for Amy to smash Blaze’s constraints. Then we get a fight were Amy and Cream almost beat Metal who was about to deliver a killing blow until his pincer is suddenly melted. We see what melted him was Burning Blaze, Blaze’s super form, who then proceeds to melt Metal into a pile of slag or so we think. Turns out Metal uploaded himself into the Egg O’ War and starts gloating while Blaze burns a hole through it and tells Amy and Cream to leave as she has some eggs to fry. She goes into the core of the ship and unleashed a huge flame blast that destroys the engine and then flies outside and unleashed a fire blast that goes completely through the ship which proceeds to sink into the ocean but the eye of the ship lights up again for an obvious sequel hook. Blaze then goes to the sub where she thanks everyone for their help and is going to send the home which is almost messed up by Bean trying to grab the Emeralds until he is forcibly restrained by Bark. A second after they leave Marine starts crying in a very cartoonish manner and Amy remarks something about their world feels off probably referencing that this is their first time on Mobius, because it needs a name goddamn it, since the reboot. Issue 58 it simply an anti-climax. Metal and his weapon were built up as a threat but were taken out rather easily even if it was by a super form. Positives: 1) It’s a Blaze story. Blaze is a character who I think honestly needs more love and is worthy of having her own spin off even if it would only be a mini. 2) Everyone is in character. Unlike TTT where a third of the cast was OOC everyone was in character in this arc even if it hurt the story or made me hate them. Character’s abilities weren’t accurate but their personalities were. 3) Finally the conflict isn’t forced. Unlike TTT where they made heroes act villainous for no real reason, in this arc no one is forced to be the bad guy simply because the arc needs one Negatives: 1) We skipped Blaze's story. Last we saw Blaze only had two Sol Emeralds but now she has six? Yardley why did you skip the rest of Blaze's story? 2) Blaze was nerfed. If Blaze kept her real power level she would’ve been able to incinerate all those pirates easily. In addition this issue continued the idiotic Blaze gets knocked out in one blow thing which only works when it doesn’t happen all the time then is starts to tug at the willing suspension of disbelief. 3) As a result of said nerfing the arc’s conflict continued for far long then it should have. Blaze could’ve just melted all the pirates since nothing in the arc implies that they have any resistance to fire with two of them incinerated by normal level Blaze. Melt the pirates then search the ship at your own leisure 4) Amy is shilled. Amy is a lot more competent in planning and fighting then she really ought to be. Amy has no special training and has barely any experience, being acknowledged as a rookie in both the old and new universes. 5) Metal is a terrible villain. Captain Metal is pretty much a pirate with delusions of grandeur. Even if Blaze couldn’t stop him he would’ve probably died upon arriving at the first worthwhile world to loot. 6) Amy is a designated hero. When Marine was seemingly getting kidnapped Amy say, “I guess we should saver her.” I know I found her very annoying but I would not leave her to die while it seems like Amy would have if it wasn’t for Cream being there. 7) Marine walked straight up to Metal. This is just completely idiotic and could have easily gotten them all killed. 8) Bean was insufferable in this arc and most of the good humor involved other’s reactions to him. 9) The only characters I didn’t want to feed to the sharks were Blaze, Cream, and Bark 10) Forced reference. 11) After all the buildup the Kraken is killed in a few pages after its introduction 12) Captain Whisker and his crew appear out of nowhere with no introduction. This is especially egregious as they have only appeared in one game, not even in any of the spin offs, and their previous appearances in the comic were at best cameos. 13) Why was Whisker and his crew even in this? 14) After all the buildup the Egg O’ War was destroyed in two hits. Talk about an anti-climax. This arc was nothing but terrible and disappointment. Blaze was nerfed to put Amy in the spotlight and none of the villains lived up to the hype. If this is an example of Yardley’s writing on average, I honestly want him to stick to just the pencils. My recommendation is to take a page from Blaze’s book and burn this arc. Next time on Tales from the Sonicverse we will look at a sequel no one asked for nor wanted with the most 90s named villain since the Dark Ages with a surprisingly more positive review.