As part of the recent Free Comic Book Day event, Archie Comics gave out “Sonic: Evolution of a Hero.” This text-heavy comic recaps over 200 issues of Archie’s Sonic book, forging a continuity surely unfamiliar to fans who have restricted themselves to Sonic’s video game appearances.

Most of the book focuses on characters who are not Sonic, crazily enough. I have scanned in the five pages about Sonic and his Freedom Fighters team, but the rest of the pages are all about Knuckles, Shadow and Dr. Ivo Robotnik (who was born Julian Kintobar of the House of Ivo!) And honestly, even the Freedom Fighter pages don’t have much to do with Sonic.

We’ve seen Sonic in some pretty tough spots… chained to slow characters who can’t run, strapped to floaty sideways-Remote control schemes, even forced into an isometric viewpoint with no save points. But we may not have all seen Sonic stuck in a mire of anthropomorphic C-grade soap opera kiddie lit! Read on and be wary.

Anybody out there dying for Robotnik’s origin tale?