5

Some of the Sonic Battle insert dialogue here just to shake things up a bit, and Nack’s fake story gets a bit of a tweaking too, before he legs it out of there. In a change from every other comic in the Emerald Chamber (and this is something I’ve tried to put in but never as much as I have here) the characters never stand in front of the foreground Emeralds, always around them, as such Nack runs behind the Emeralds and out the Chamber, which I’ve very pleased about because it always bugged when they stood in front of them because they were basically standing on nothing. As before, and it is extended later, Knuckles is confused and not impressed by their story, and Charmy gets extra dialogue to cover up the Emeralds…Err, I mean, enhance his character…

6

There’s a blur-motion-line trick on the Time Stone and a small flash of light to show Nack is shaking it and it is powering up, before the usual light show happens. This time, you’ll notice, the lightning is bolder and the energy is bigger and the shockwaves and longer and there’s more because more people are being transported through time. The shot of the energy flying through time and space here is done a lot better than before, with the lightning striking towards Little Planet, which is sitting on two backgrounds (space and Never Lake) spliced together through Motion-Line-Blurs. They then touch down on a brand new Little Planet background which is a combination of Collision Chaos Past and Present, it looks really good but I now/later noticed that it was a bit too buys and bright to show action, so I scale it down later in Part Four.

7

This time, Espio introduces them as he set up Chaotix to start with, and there is some exposition about Nack and his use of the alias Fang, they then explain everything and Knuckles despairs at the problems of surface dwellers, something that is part of his character arc in this Saga and which is somewhat grown out of at the end when he invites Chaotix to help him in his duties. But, for now, Zonik appears and, through Sonic Battle dialogue, they discuss his plan.

8

Not happy with that split screen but you get the point, I hadn’t worked on comics for a while and forgot that split screens like that should be two horizontal action inserts, not vertical. Either way, they all attack Zonik (except Knuckles, holding back through experience perhaps, but Zonik’s electrical attack kinda stops him too) to no avail (I really wanted to showcase the electricity element of this Metal Sonic, given his electrical sprites). Knuckles catches a fireball to the face and Espio sneakily vanishes over two frames, once again I forgot how to do this technique, discovered a new one (or possibly the old one) and will probably forget it again next time lol.

9

Everything about this page is so much clearer and better than before, you clearly see Zonik attack Espio, Nack clearly dropkicks Mighty’s head, Zonik how holds both Time Stone sin both hands and the allusion to Nack working for Eggman and with Zonik, reinforced in Part Four, is seen a little better as well. The ending is abrupt as before but we see how powerful Zonik is a little better because his credibility hasn’t been shot to hell by Amy and Cream, so you know things are pretty dire right now.

OVERALL

Again, I am very happy with this part as the rewrites in favour of continuity do nothing but strengthen this part, as does the inclusion of all the long omitted scenes that really pad out the introduction and give us some more exposition and background into Nack and the Time Stones, as well as Flickie’s Island. Chaotix have more personality because I’m used to writing them now and know what I want from each of them, and Zonik’s new reputation grows and is better because of the rewrites in earlier chapters that help justify his ability to beat all of Chaotix and Knuckles.