ARCHIE COMICS FIRST LOOKS: IAN FLYNN

Archie Comics writer Ian Flynn talks about Sonic the Hedgehog #203, in stores on August 12.

Question: How many parts is "Heavy in the Head"?

Flynn: "Heavy is the Head..." is a two-part story. The title stems from the expression "heavy is the head that wears the crown" (which in turn is a misquotation from Shakespeare's Henry IV, but I'm getting on a tangent) One of Monkey (Ken) Khan's signature features is his power ring crown, so that right there should hint that the story will be dealing with some of the secrets he's been keeping about the state of the Dragon Kingdom and all this talk of him being a "king."

Question: With the Freedom Fighters loosing to the Iron Dominion, what hope is left for Ken?

Flynn: What hope indeed? It's been established that he failed to protect his homeland, and now he's watching a repeat of it here with our main cast of heroes. If he can't help turn things around, that could be it for him.

Question: How does the arrival of the Iron Queen change things for the Freedom Fighters?

Flynn: She's a different villain with a different way of tackling world domination. The Freedom Fighters are used to Dr. Robotnik's crazy, over-the-top inventions and convoluted plans. The Iron Queen seems to operate much more simply by overwhelming her enemies with numbers. When that fails, she finds a way to destroy her enemies from within ­ something we'll be seeing in the upcoming story arc and beyond.

Question: Sonic started co-features after #200. What type of reaction of you been getting from the co-features in the back of Sonic?

Flynn: A lot of the veteran fans are happy to see the "back-up" stories come back. They used to be a regular feature of the book and were dropped in favor of telling bigger stories. We've done that for a while now, so to switch things up a little we're running the back-ups to tell even more stories and highlight some new talent. The fans seem to really enjoy it.

Question: Why are you spotlighting Knuckles now?

Flynn: I was a big fan of the Knuckles the Echidna spin-off series from back in the day. When the series was canceled, the Knuckles stories moved into the co-features of the time, but felt a bit cramped. Now that we have Sonic Universe to play with, we can finally go back and explore the Knuckles stories again. That, and folks who have been following Sonic the Hedgehog recently know that Espio has sided with the Iron Dominion for some reason. Espio is part of Knuckles' team, the Chaotix, and Knux is just the type of guy to demand answers.

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