This time around, the covers are more basic, having sprites on them for the first time as well as Word Art text. Originally, these covers were much blander, this one in particular had just the Tails sprite, but I went back in May of 2005 and re-did the covers, so now we have Tails and Ray together at last.

1

Now, with these comics and most of Perfect Chaos, the pages are presented in JPG format. Why? Well, it was because when I did BFTCE, I did the comic in Paint as a BitMap, then saved it as a GIF file, a fact I think I forgot at this point, or it might have been because GIF seemed wrong (the only commonly seen picture files I knew of were BMP and JPG) so the quality is a bit off in certain places, mostly on reds, and I apologise for that, I did mean at one time to re-do the Time Stone Saga with GIF files but it’s a lot of work to do. Anyway, this is our first Prologue, something I later moved away from, which helps re-introduce us to the story and establish what’s been happening.

2

Text boxes are still a tad oversized, but at least at this point I had learned about the transparency option in Paint. I had no idea how to show Eggman learning this ancient legend of the Little Planet, so I did a crudely drawn scroll. It works. I love those EggRobo sprites, though now I use the Gamma sprites from Sonic Battle. Heavy and Bomb are known individually but also as Heavybomb on purpose, because they are a team, effectively one Robot. I depict them as evil, since they have no real official story from Knuckles’ Chaotix. Originally, they weren’t even in this story, and Eggman had created about three Metal Sonic’s instead, but I thought that would be overkill (ironic considering how prominent Metal becomes later). Speaking of which, here’s the real Metal, as we know and love him! And, incase you’re wondering, I drew that Planet……….Also, the Little Planet takes on a mixture of continuities here as it appears in the skies of Mobius for one month once a year and then disappears and is also referred to (at some point) as the Little Planet of Miracles.

3

Knuckles has a little Batman Forever vibe coming from the Emerald Shrine here, with the alarms and crap. Here we see that there is am area beyond the Shrine which houses a computer of sorts, this is based on the Fleetway continuity, wherein Knuckles had access to ancient Echidna technology which he used to set up alarms and stuff around the Island.

4

Of course, Knux’s monitor shows only black and white, damn out of date technology. I wanted to enforce here that Knuckles was indeed an ally of Sonic’s and would help him, but his first priority is to the Floating Island and the Chaos Emeralds, so he passes this information on and goes back to his duties, something he does less and less of in later comics after the inclusion of fellow Guardians Chaotix. Amy’s introduction was done as abruptly as it was in Sonic CD; she just appears and we get from dialogue that she’s been following Sonic and pestering him for a while, indeed she has been infatuated with him since BTFCE. I love that holographic communication device, of course I never used it again, shame that. And we’re staying with game continuity by having Tails come from Westside Island, though the actual clear-cut reasons for him leaving have never actually been revealed in my comics.

5

Here’s the Tornado, nice little introduction of it and the first of many flights-to-other-areas scenes. Here we find out that Tails grew up with Ray and that they had a close bond, it is actually a bond as close as Tails’s to Sonic, though neither Tails nor Ray were the superior of the two unlike with Sonic and Tails, where Sonic is faster, older and smarter, not to mention braver. The hint here is that Tails couldn’t take any more of the bullying and being outcast because of his two tails so he left, but you’d think he would’ve took Ray with him. It’s clearly a chapter of his life he’s willing to put behind him and I have never found a proper way to explore it and further than this.

6

Here’s my nifty little gimmick for this comic, similar to the branching storylines of Sonic Adventure, as Sonic and Amy are spirited away and we’re left with Tails and Ray to follow their little adventure. Ray is a good custom sprite but he has very few frames and animations, which make using him regularly very difficult. At this point I wasn’t much of a spriter so I couldn’t make more frames for him. Ray seems to have an interesting quirk of saying “Damn” a whole lot, and the two have obviously maintained their friendship bond through the years.

7

Heavy and Bomb have a little sophisticated discourse compared to Eggman’s usual Robots, this was to give them more personality and make them seem more advanced. That “Time Stone” is, of course, a Chaos Emerald sprite from Sonic Spinball, this is due to the fact that I had no idea what the Time Stones looked like at the time. I knew there was seven but I chose to have only two to scale it down more, plus one worked well enough in Fleetway. The Stone’s are hidden away in sacred places similar to the Emerald Shrine. And, can I just say, WHITE SPACE WHITE SPACE!!!

8

Yes, I’m certainly sure he does “blow”. What was I smoking? Anyway, the bungling droids turn out to be pretty stupid and not as tough as they seemed as they destroy themselves and the portable Roboticisor Device! Interesting note I just considered here is that a lot of Tails’s victory here is from luck, rather than skill, his character arc of developing confidence and abilities is as subtle as it is usual when concerning Tails. When Ray grabs that Time Stone, it also shrinks, and becomes a Triple Trouble Chaos Emerald as we’re left wondering just what the hell happened to Sonic and Amy…

OVERALL

I like this, it helps put Tails in the spot light and introduces Ray as someone with a personality created solely by me as I have no idea what he’s like in the games or in Archie, so I had a lot of room to make my own decisions, like tying him into Tails’s past instead of Sonic’s. This part serves as basically an origin for Tails with the talks of his past and is, I think, the closest I’ll ever do to doing a Tails origin (but then this was also Amy’s origin until I re-did BFTCE, so who knows?)