Deep within the fortified walls of the mighty Blackwood castle, far away from anyone who can help, Silver and Blaze find themselves at odds. While the seemingly chivalrous Blackwood charms the princess of the Sol Empire, Silver is left to discover some strange circumstances surrounding the castle, including the ever-cheery palace staff. Without a moment to themselves, the pair must trust each other to navigate the politics and sinister tech of this gothic palace.
However, the tense status quo will soon erupt when Blackwood approaches Blaze with an extreme offer..one that would change the balance of power in Sonic’s world forever!
Join our heroes and villains on the Road to #100 in this thrilling gothic mystery!
IDW Sonic the Hedgehog #90 Official Solicitation
There are probably worse places to spend an afternoon than an enormous snow-covered castle owned by an eccentric nobleman with a flair for dramatic storytelling… Probably.
Sonic the Hedgehog #90 continues Blaze and Silver’s stay at Blackwood Castle, where practically everything looks immaculate, everyone is unfailingly polite and absolutely nothing feels right. Issue #89 did the work of getting the pair through the front door. This chapter gets to enjoy making them stay there.
And Blackwood is really enjoying having guests.
Note: This review is spoiler-free. It discusses the setup already revealed by IDW and the general direction of the issue, but leaves its major developments, reveals and ending alone.
Evan Stanley has found a very entertaining way to structure this part of the story because Blaze and Silver are both suspicious of the same place, but their personalities send them in completely different directions.
Blaze is a princess. She knows how this works.
Blackwood wants to walk her around his estate, explain his family history and present himself as the impossibly gracious host? Fine. Blaze can smile, listen and play along while quietly judging absolutely everything around her.
And her face is doing a lot of judging.
The opening pages get plenty of mileage out of Blackwood insisting on treating Blaze like royalty while she politely attempts to get on with the reason she is actually there. He takes her hand to help her across some ice. She tells him that really is not necessary. He insists. She allows it because refusing would apparently require more effort than simply letting this strange man complete whatever courtly ritual he has planned.
Then he stops her because he has reached the perfect spot for his surprise.
The surprise is a bell.
A very loud bell.
That kind of character comedy works especially well because Blackwood is not written as a complete clown. He is ridiculous, certainly, but he is also completely comfortable in his own environment. Every room, story and ceremony reinforces his importance, and he delivers the whole performance with enough confidence that you can understand why somebody unfamiliar with him might find it charming.
Blaze is just not somebody particularly susceptible to being dazzled by fancy architecture and a family tree.
Silver, meanwhile, is doing the considerably less glamorous job of noticing that something about the castle does not add up.
IDW’s solicitation already makes the strange behaviour of Blackwood’s palace staff part of the premise, and the comic gets good mileage out of letting Silver follow that thread while Blaze is occupied elsewhere. He is not navigating social etiquette or indulging Blackwood’s stories. He sees something odd, decides he wants an explanation and starts pulling at it.
That gives the issue a nice push and pull.
Whenever Blaze’s half starts settling into Blackwood’s grand tour, Silver’s side reminds us that there is a mystery underneath all of this. Whenever Silver gets closer to something uncomfortable, the story can cut back to Blackwood cheerfully explaining another piece of his magnificent home as though nothing remotely sinister could possibly be happening.
The castle itself does a lot of the work.
Alex Forrest’s pencils and Rik Mack’s inks give Blackwood Castle the kind of storybook grandeur that suits its owner perfectly. Huge gates, towers, clocks, elaborate interiors and uniformed staff make the place feel genuinely impressive rather than simply “evil castle number seven.”
That is important because the discomfort comes from how nice everything initially appears.
The architecture is beautiful. The staff are cheerful. Blackwood is attentive. Nothing needs to be covered in skulls or dripping green slime for the reader to understand that Silver and Blaze should probably not settle in for a relaxing weekend.
Iasmin Omar Ata’s colours help considerably here too. The snowy exterior uses pale blues, greens and muted purples before the issue gradually finds room for stronger bursts of colour. Blaze’s warmer palette and Silver’s cyan psychokinetic effects naturally stand out against the colder castle surroundings, and when the book eventually gets more energetic, those contrasting colours make the action extremely easy to follow.
Forrest is particularly good with expressions.
Blaze has always been a character who becomes funnier the harder she tries to maintain her dignity, and this issue understands that perfectly. She does not need to scream at Blackwood or start making exaggerated comedy faces every other panel. A narrowed eye, a tiny change in her mouth or one especially tired stare usually tells you exactly how much of this conversation she is willing to tolerate.
Blackwood, by comparison, is constantly performing. Arms out. Hands raised. Dramatic poses. Big smiles. He talks like somebody who has spent years imagining exactly how impressive he will sound when visitors finally arrive.
It would be unbearable if it were not also quite funny.
Silver gets a different sort of visual treatment. His sequences are more restless and investigative, and Forrest lets his body language do a lot of the talking. Silver is curious, increasingly concerned and still recognisably Silver in the way he can go from determined detective to slightly overwhelmed hedgehog very quickly.
The character work between him and Blaze is probably the strongest part of the issue.
They are not simply two heroes who happen to have been assigned the same mystery. Stanley continues to use the fact that they know each other well, including the frustrations that come with that. Blaze wants to approach the situation one way. Silver has reasons for approaching it another. Neither one is being stupid, and the comic does not manufacture an argument by suddenly making one of them incapable of basic communication.
Their disagreement comes from two people trying to protect each other while having very different instincts about how to do it.
That feels right for them.
There is also a pleasing amount of continuity in how Blaze carries herself after the events surrounding Silver in the previous issue. She is clearly not interested in repeating certain mistakes, and that gives some weight to her caution here without requiring Stanley to stop the story for a large emotional recap.
The one place where the issue does slow down a little too much is Blackwood himself.
His tendency to explain things at length is obviously part of the joke and part of his characterization, but there are points where the mystery is moving nicely and another Blackwood history lesson arrives to apply the brakes. Some of that information becomes relevant to understanding the man and the world around him, so it is not empty exposition. There is simply quite a lot of it.
Thankfully, Forrest makes those sections entertaining to look at, and Blackwood is eccentric enough that listening to him talk is rarely boring.
Once the issue decides it has allowed everybody enough polite conversation, things become considerably less polite.
I am not going anywhere near the details here because the second half contains most of the chapter’s actual payoff, and several of its best pages depend on seeing what happens without advance warning. What I can say is that the comic earns the escalation. The uneasiness surrounding the castle is not forgotten, Silver’s investigation is not there just to keep him busy, and Blaze eventually gets rather more to deal with than Blackwood’s guided tour.
The artwork also gets to cut loose considerably more once that happens.
Blaze and Silver have powers that could very easily turn a page into an unreadable mess of fire, psychic effects and bodies flying in different directions. Instead, the action remains remarkably clear. The orange and pink heat around Blaze contrasts beautifully against Silver’s cooler cyan effects, while the panel layouts keep your eye moving in the direction the characters are actually moving.
It looks fast without becoming confusing.
And then the issue reaches its ending.
Which is rude.
Not bad.
Rude.
This is very much the middle chapter of something larger, and Sonic the Hedgehog #90 knows precisely how much information it can give you before stopping. Anyone expecting this visit to Blackwood Castle to wrap itself up neatly here is going to be staring at the final page wishing issue #91 was already sitting beside it.
As part of the Road to 100, though, that is encouraging.
Issue #90 does not feel like it is stalling for the big milestone. It is using the space to introduce a new corner of Sonic’s world, give Blaze and Silver a proper mystery of their own and establish Blackwood as somebody considerably more memorable than a villain who simply appears, announces his plan and starts throwing robots around.
Two issues into this story, I genuinely want to know more about him.
Although I would absolutely decline the castle tour.
Rating: 8/10
A wonderfully uncomfortable trip through Blackwood Castle that makes excellent use of Blaze and Silver’s different personalities, backs its gothic mystery with expressive artwork and character-driven humour, and leaves just enough unanswered to make the wait for issue #91 particularly annoying.
Sonic the Hedgehog #90 releases on September 30th and is written by Evan Stanley, with pencils by Alex Forrest, inks by Rik Mack, colours by Iasmin Omar Ata and lettering by Ed Dukeshire.
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