A blast from the past!note
| Written by: | Ian Flynn, Clint, Justin, Travis & Griffin McElroy, Gale Galligan |
| Year: | Four |
| Release Date: | June 23, 2021 |
| Story Count: | 3 |
A special anthology comic released in celebration of Sonic's 30th year as a gaming icon. This special focus on Classic Sonicnote and adventures set in the past. As with the previous annuals, it acts as an anthology with three separate stories.
- Seasons of Chaos (Written by Ian Flynn): A usual outing with Sonic, Tails, and Amy, turns into a hunt for Chaos Emeralds when Metal Sonic suddenly shows up and snatches an emerald they come across. Knowing that if he's looking for them, it can't be for anything good. Our heroes set out to stop him, their adventures leading them through different terrains and other familiar faces, both good and bad.
- Sonic Learns to Drive (Written by Clint, Justin, Travis & Griffin McElroy): Just as the title says. Though Sonic is the fastest thing alive, he decides to try his hand at operating a vehicle so he can enter a drag race rally. Things escalate into chaos incredibly quickly.
- Dr. Eggman’s Birthday (Written by Gale Galligan): Of course it's not just Sonic's celebration, but his arch-enemy's as well. The story takes place on Eggman's special day, with Eggman suspecting that his Badniks are planning to surprise him, as they have done every year before.
These three stories and the Free Comic Book Day special released the same year would get printed together as part of Sonic the Hedgehog 30th Anniversary: Deluxe Edition.
The 30th Anniversary Special contains examples of the following tropes:
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General
- The Bus Came Back: While it's in the past, Knuckles finally shows up again in the comic, having not been seen since his small role in "Out of the Blue" arc at the time of this comic's release.
- Debut Queue: This issue marks the debut of Mighty, Ray, Fang, Bean, Bark, Tails Doll, Metal Knuckles, and the Hard-Boiled Heavies into the Sonic IDW comics. The classic version of Espio also makes a cameo through the loophole of appearing on the marquee artwork of Sonic the Fighters.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: A look in on Classic Sonic rather than the modern one we've been following since the start, which would kick off a series of related classic-focused one-shots for various characters and their anniversaries.
- Reference Overdosed: The special is jam-packed with visual references to many elements of Sonic and SEGA as a whole. Good luck finding each one of them!
- Suddenly Speaking: Since this is a comic, Classic Sonic (who is normally mute in the games) is allowed to speak.
Seasons of Chaos
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Attempted by Eggman after Heavy King is subdued. He orders his bots to attack the heroes and the Hooligans... and they've all left by then with the Chaos Emeralds, likely predicting he would. Whats more, the whole endeavor drained the energy from Heavy King, Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles, leaving him with no way to chase after them.
- Company Cross References: The story begins in "Spring Valley Zone", which is modeled after the first level of Sonic Team's NiGHTS into Dreams…. The Badniks found here are modeled after the Shleep, Hollow, and Alarm Egg enemies from NiGHTS.
- Continuity Nod: When Sonic is taunting Heavy King, he name drops Mecha Sonic from Sonic 3 & Knuckles when he notes that King can't even go Super using the Chaos Emeralds, along with how he's just a mini Death Egg Robot with a cape.
- Enemy Mine: Once Eggman explains what's happening, Sonic, his friends, the Hooligans and Eggman decide to team up to take Heavy King down.
- Insane Troll Logic: Heavy King gets Eggman to spare him by explaining he was just following his programming for deception that Eggman put in him. Eggman does see his point and is actually happy that things went horribly right (though does intend to patch him so he doesn't pull this stunt again).
- Literal-Minded: Amy inverts this when Sonic asks her to give him a boost.Amy: You're a wonderful person, and people say nice things about you!
Sonic: Vertically.
Amy: Oh! M-my mistake! - Mythology Gag:
- The flashback scene where Knuckles is hanging out with the animal friends in Mushroom Hill Zone is essentially the exact same shot from the opening cutscene of Knuckles' playthrough in Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3's second half.
- Fang, Bean, and Bark acting as a team here is a reference to how they teamed up as the Hooligans in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), and they're even characterized the same way. However, the name "Hooligans" is not used, despite being name-dropped by Sonic in the main IDW continuity.
- When Eggman displays the Tails Doll and his intention to use it's antenna, Tails complains that Sonic gets a robot and he gets... that. He likewise complained about this in the Archie comics, with the same lines too.
- While Heavy King outlines his master plan, he mentions ruling over the world as its "metallic overlord". This causes Eggman to glance suspiciously at Metal Sonic, telling him not to "get any ideas".
- In Winter Caverns, Fang shoots a turtle-igloo badnik that looks identical to a badnik seen in Sonic: Mega Drive.
- The panel where Knuckles waves goodbye to Sonic is similar to one where he does the same thing to Knuckles in Sonic Advance 2.
- Noodle Incident: When Fang asks Bean to go grab the Marvelous Queen, he remarks that he is no longer allowed to drive the bike after "last time." Considering it's Bean, he probably isn't the best driver around.
- Not Me This Time: It's initially thought that Eggman was the cause of the emerald hunt. Turns out he isn't, Heavy King is. Having rebelled, took over Eggman's base and seeking out the emeralds to be all powerful and take over the world.
- Pummel Duel: Knuckles and Bark get into one when the Hooligans first confront Sonic's group over the yellow Chaos Emerald, which ends with a Cross Counter.
- Recursive Canon: Eggman has a Sonic the Fighters and SegaSonic the Hedgehog arcade cabinets in his base (though the latter is covered by a speech bubble).
- Seasonal Baggage: "Seasons of Chaos", as the name implies, uses the four seasons as a motif. The comic starts in Spring Valley, moves on to Summer Falls, then to Autumn Forest, and ends at Eggman's base in Winter Caverns.
- Shout-Out:
- When Sonic asks for a boost Amy tells him that he’s a wonderful person and people say nice things about him before Sonic clarifies that he meant a vertical boost.
- Tails has a radar designed to track down the Chaos Emeralds easily, which Amy uses when he leaves it behind by accident. While the Emerald radar was first developed by Tails in Sonic 3 (called the "Emerald Detector") the design and name of the device takes more inspiration from the Dragon Radar in this story.
- We Need a Distraction: In the climax, Sonic goes to distract Heavy King by taunting him to allow the others to sneak up to his platform and take the Chaos Emeralds surrounding him.
Sonic Learns To Drive
- Epic Fail: Sonic wanted to take the driving test so he can enter a rally race in order to get the grand prize: a bunch of Chili Dogs. Not only does he fail the driving test itself, but he mixes up the date of when it takes place, where it is happening on the same day as the one-shot. Sonic doesn't even get a chance to get to the rally before it starts, as Eggman also happens to be attacking the city.
- Mythology Gag: Nearly every panel in this story contains some form of call-back or reference to Classic Sonic media. According to artist Mauro Fonseca
, he felt the original script didn't have much in the way of an "anniversary" feel, so he included many Easter Eggs based on several Sonic games and comics he enjoyed. Just to name a few:- The air freshener in Kip's car is shaped like the space ship from SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol.
- The "S" emblem on the front of Kip's car is identical to the one in Sega's logo from 1956-1975.
- On the back of Kip's car is a sticker that says "Visit Jade Gully", written in the same font as the "X-Treme" in Sonic X-treme's logo.
- The way Sonic is graded for his driving test is similar to how the player is ranked at the end of a stage in the 3D games. In this case, Sonic gets a "E" Rank.
- In the back of Kip's car seat is a pouch with three books sticking out of it:
- A maroon leather-bound book with "Eraser" written on the front in Old English font.
- A paperback book titled "Music Maker" featuring a trio of Sonic-like characters colored red, yellow, and blue.
- Another paperback book whose title is partially obscured but looks identical to the logo for Sonic the Hedgehog's Gameworld, and features Arms and Dr. Eggman's mech from SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol on the cover.
- The panel where Sonic drives through "the loop" is swarming with references, including but not limited to:
- The flickies from Sonic 3D Blast can be seen flying by.
- Dreams Come True's tour poster from 1990, where Sonic was first unveiled to the world, plastered on the side of the loop along with a poster depicting a menacing white character from an early piece of Sonic concept art and another poster previously seen throughout Speed Highway depicting an unnamed bikini-clad character, which former Sega artist Satoshi Akano revealed to be an unused spider girl character for the gamenote .
- A building to the left of the loop labelled "M. Adams Schoolhouse", a double reference to Sonic's Schoolhouse and Martin Adams, a pseudonym used by authors of the Sonic the Hedgehog novels published by Virgin Books.
- A Popcorn Shop with a sticker advertising "G Blast", an amalgamation of Sonic Blast and its Japanese title, G Sonic.
- No Antagonist: The story is about Sonic learning to drive for a chili dog's contest, and features no real antagonist (though Eggman is mentioned and the story ends with Sonic racing off to stop him).
- Not So Above It All: Kip, Sonic's driving instructor, allows Sonic to go nuts with his car to get to an Eggman attack faster at the end of the story. He even points out a ramp Sonic could use and explains he wants to see the blue blur's speediness in action.
- Shout-Out: To Casablanca, specifically the famous "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" line.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Sonic takes the driving test and... ends up failing because he's disregarding safety regulations (like, y'know, keeping your hands on the wheel) and even got out of it while it was in motion at one point. While Kip lets Sonic go full Speed Demon at the end for the sake of stopping an Eggman attack, he likewise tells him he'll have to take the test again in ten business days.
Dr. Eggman's Birthday
- Birthday Hater: Eggman laments he doesn't look forward to his birthday as his robots always try to throw him a party when he'd rather they just be working as usual.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Invoked by Eggman himself, but defied by his robots. Eggman would rather just be working on his inventions as usual than take a break to celebrate his birthday. Unfortunately for him, his robots want to do something nice for their creator on his special day and it always ends with them throwing him a party, much to his chagrin.
- Company Cross References: Eggman's rec room contains arcade cabinets for Quartet and OutRun, two pre-Sonic Sega arcade games.
- No Antagonist: While Eggman's robots want to crush Sonic for Eggman's birthday, the story as a whole features no real antagonist.
- Mythology Gag: Eggman is seen wearing his pajamas from Sonic the Animation, and his bedroom is decorated with the vandalized Sonic posters from the same short.
- Pet the Dog: Upon finding out the Badniks were trying to defeat Sonic for Eggman's birthday and explain he should at least get something nice on said day, Eggman is slightly touched by the gesture and begrudgingly lets them celebrate his birthday.
- Villain Episode: This story naturally focuses on Eggman.
