Woot! Made it through our first year relatively unscathed!note
| Written by: | Ian Flynn, Caleb Goellner, Evan Stanley & Gigi Dutreix, Cavan Scott, and James Kochalka |
| Year: | Two |
| Release Date: | May 1, 2019 |
| Story Count: | 5 |
A special anthology comic released in celebration of the first anniversary of the overall IDW Sonic series.
It features five stories focusing on various characters, written and illustrated by different teams.
- Bonds of Friendship (Written by Ian Flynn): Tangle returns home and meets up with childhood friend Jewel and fellow Resistance fighter, Whisper. However all three end up having to deal with the Babylon Rogues when they target Jewel's shop.
- Jet Set Tornado (Written by Caleb Goellner): Sonic and Tails take the Tornado out for a spin and test his new booster. But things get serious when they spot one of Eggman's robot making off with a fuel cell and have to chase it down.
- Victory Garden (Written by Evan Stanley & Gigi Dutreix): Silver tries his hand at gardening but can't get anything to grow, so Blaze steps in to help.
- Curse of the Pyramid (Written by Cavan Scott): Rough and Tumble go to raid one of Eggman's former bases just as Rouge comes in to do the same, leading into a competition to get the goodies inside.
- Sonic Fan Club (Written by James Kochalka): Some members of a Sonic fan club in Spiral Hill Village come together to decide who their president will be, but end up under attack by a Badnik.
Tropes used in this Annual:
- Accidental Kidnapping: Storm inadvertently kidnaps Jewel in Bonds of Friendship after mistaking her shiny carapace for a large gem.
- Build Like an Egyptian: The setting of "Curse of the Pyramid," where Rough and Tumble have arrived at an abandoned pyramid that Eggman built in Dusty Desert, looking for his "secret treasure," though Tumble believes it to be cursed. It turns out to be littered with booby traps, such as the Egg Golem, only adding to Tumble's fears. It turns out after Eggman abandoned the base, a family of villagers have taken refuge inside, keeping the traps active in order to ward off intruders.
- Canon Foreigner: Bonds of Friendship introduces Jewel the Beetle, Tangle's childhood friend and the curator of a gemstone museum in their hometown. Compared to Tangle, though, Jewel is much more down to earth.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While the Babylon Rogues are thieves, they try not to hurt people if they can help it. Jet and Wave showcase horror and disapproval at Storm literally throwing Jewel off their airship over Jet's wording, especially when he does so too hard that it cracks her carapace in the process.
- Hidden Depths: Both Silver and Blaze have or had taken up gardening, though Blaze knows a bit more on the subject than Silver.
- Hidden Elf Village: Rogue finds out there were some people living in the pyramid base after Eggman had abandoned it. They're more then grateful to her for keeping Rough and Tumble from finding them.
- Implied Death Threat: While not a threat to kill, Tangle threatens nonetheless to "poach" the Rogues if they mess with her hometown or friends again.
- Innocently Insensitive: Unaware that Whisper Hates Being Touched, Tangle glomps her on sight when the sniper comes to visit. Whisper quickly pushes Tangle away with her Wispon, discomforted, though Tangle apologizes quickly afterwards.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rouge is a vain treasure hunter who only broke into Eggman's old pyramid base just to rob him of his treasure, not unlike Rough and Tumble. However, once she sees that there is a family living inside the pyramid, she fakes a curse to get both Rough and Tumble to leave, believing the skunks would spread the word of how it's haunted, all to maintain the cover of how there's a family have retrofitted the pyramid into their home. While the family teases how she broke in to steal Eggman's treasure, they give it to her without much fuss, with Rouge glad to keep the pyramid's true nature and where she found said treasure a mystery.
- Literal-Minded: Storm takes Jet's command to "throw [Jewel] out" of their airship at face value and literally chucks her out a window to Jet and Wave's horror.
- Malicious Misnaming: Rouge calls the two skunks "Scruff and Bumble" after the duo fall for her ruse of there being a curse in the pyramid.
- Noodle Incident: Seeing Jewel fall of the Babylon Rogues' airship has Whisper yell "NOT AGAIN!" as she jumps out to save her. The reason for this would later be revealed in Tangle and Whisper's mini series.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Tangle becomes frantic when Jewel is abducted, marking the first time we see the cheerful, cocky lemur show signs of fear or worry.
- Likewise, Whisper—for the first time on-page—raises her voice as she jumps out of the blimp to save Jewel.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Tangle snags the jewels they robbed from Jewel's museum after Whisper and she jump out to save Jewel, the Babylon Rogues don't bother to retrieve them, deciding the whole escapade was too much of a hassle and move on.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Rouge pulls this on Rough and Tumble claiming she was affected by the "mummy's curse" of the pyramid they were raiding and was turned into one herself. It's enough to scare the two out of the building.
- Shout-Out: Jet Set Tornado's title is one to Jet Set Radio, another video game made by Sega.
- Take My Hand!: Whisper and Jewel reach for each other's hands while in free-fall. With some effort, Whisper is able to catch Jewel and save her.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The family in the pyramid rewards Rouge for driving out the skunks by giving her all of the treasure they could find. They treat said treasure as this because they were simply looking for a place to stay and Eggman just happened to left the place abandoned.
