Lupe and the Wolfpack: "Family"
Reviewed by Chaos Theory T. Echidna.
October 8, 1999.
"Three things never anger, or you'll not live for long:
A wolf with cubs, a man with power, and a woman's sense of wrong."
--Meredith Lackey, "Threes".
Now, this story REALLY makes me wish I knew the backstory--worse than any of the others in this issue. But even I did know it, I just can't believe that what happened at the end here actually...happened! It feels fake, unreal, like a bad dream, a vision of a possible bad future, a holodeck program! Ken Penders himself told me that yes, it really did happen, in real-time. But I am still, somewhere inside, waiting for Lupe to wake up and bash her alarm clock, or to tell the computer to "End program".
At any rate, let's move along to the story itself. This story was illustrated by Colleen Doran, who seems to be the first (and only) semi-regular female artist the Sonic and/or Knuckles series have EVER had. I hope she stays for a while. She's no Manny Galan, but she beats Chris Allan and ESPECIALLY Art Mawhinney all hollow. (Mawhinney is the guy who inflicted the Chaotix adaptation's artwork on the world...shudder...)
We start off with Lupe and a bunch of people I don't know, including--two HUMANS?!--in a ruined city of some kind, which we are told is "somewhere out in the Western Flats". Evidently, they are looking for their families, as the title of the story would suggest. I would care more if I knew who these people were. Anyway, a guy (wolf?) named Reynard says to Lupe that perhaps this is not such a good idea, but her argument is that if they don't find the actual people, they'll find clues as to where they've gone. NITPICK! Reynard keeps calling Lupe "Seņorita", which is Spanish for "Miss", but later on we find out she's married. So she SHOULD have been "Seņora", which means "Mrs." I took Spanish for several years...don't even THINK about putting these kind of things over on me...
(Then again, what am I saying--this IS the comic that voluntarily has Antoine saying "Sacre bleu cheez!" on a regular basis. I suppose compared to that, this is a MINOR transgression...)
Oh, wait, I just noticed another nitpick. Mobians are supposed to be only about 2-3 feet tall (not counting the extremes, such as Dulcy or Archimedes) when they are full-grown, but the two little Human girls are SHORTER than them--somewhat shorter than Lupe and WAY shorter than a big fat blue guy named "Canus". At their age, they should be the same height as the moderate-sized adult Mobians already--if not taller. ANYway....
They continue their search and argue about how they might be wasting their time while spitting out names for the audience that just joined right and left--nice gesture, but it ain't enough! (Among others, the Wolfpack includes people named Reynard, Canus, and Lupe's husband is named Lobo.) Then some gas comes in through a vent or something and they all knock out.
In the next panel, one of those weird-looking PINK lady...wolves? (there are two of them, and neither one is given any name) actually says the classic line "Where are we?" (well, it was "Where the heck are we?" but close enough) and they find themselves in some part of Robotropolis, evidently--a very stinky part judging from Lupe's comment. Some metallic footsteps come clanking towards the group, and they assume that it's a SWATBOT. But it's not--
--it's Lupe's HUSBAND AND CHILDREN, all roboticised!
Geez, they're dropping like FLIES in this issue, aren't they?! And it's not over YET...
Lupe gets this really sad look on her face and says, helplessly, "What happened? Who did this to you?" and a voice from off-screen turns out to be:
Two pages of ads! OH, NO!!!
Seriously, after Lupe is done reading the ads she finds herself looking into the glowing red eyes of....UNCLE CHUCK?!!
You see, I understand _now_ that the Robians all recently had their free-will software updated or what have you when Robo-Robotnik took over a few issues ago. But at the time, when I first read this, I didn't know that, and it made this already unreal story seem even MORE bizzarre. I couldn't believe my eyes. UNCLE CHUCK is the one who roboticised them?!! I always thought he was a GOOD guy!! I LIKED Uncle Chuck!! WWAAAAAHHHHH!!
I do like a bit of darkness in moderation, but this is getting DEPRESSING!
And again, it's not over yet...
Lupe seems to be as shocked and angry about this as I am, because she SNARLS at Uncle Chuck and has this look on her face like she's just about to start ripping him to shreds with her own teeth and claws! (And seems to be quite capable of doing so, too.) The others hold her back while Uncle Chuck sneers at her and reminds her of just exactly who is in charge. If she doesn't do what he wants, her three Robian family members will be "so much scrap metal"!
So, what does he want her to do?
STEP INTO A ROBOTICISER!!
He then makes, of all people, her husband Lobo be the one to actually throw the switch (oooh...injury to insult...) and the remainder of the Wolfpack gasps and sobs in shock while she is--yes, indeedy--roboticised.
So, lemme count here, HOW MANY characters have we lost in this one freakin' issue ALONE?!! And Lupe, who is hardly a nobody, dies in the space of only one page.
At any rate, Sir Charles realises that "something's gone wrong!" when Lupe-bot goes NUTS and starts TRASHING THE PLACE! It seems her free-will-inhibiting circuits didn't quite work, or that through sheer force of her own will, she managed to fight it off herself--for just a few seconds.
Long enough.
"GET--OUT--OF--HERE--NOW!" she tells the others in her new metallic voice, and they all go tearing out, except for Reynard. "What about you, Seņorita?" he asks. "We can't just leave you here!"
Lupe's last words are:
"GETTING--HARD--TO--THINK--JUST--WANT--TO--BE--WITH--FAMILY." and Reynard finally leaves. We see her going towards a pile of broken robots, and whether she's "dying", as in breaking down because the roboticisation didn't go right, or just resigning herself to her new life of total slavery, isn't quite clear.
But it doesn't really matter, now, does it? BOTH choices are equivalent to death, after all.
Reynard leaves, after calling her "beautiful" in Spanish (whoah, hope he didn't act like that BEFORE they knew her husband was dead! I smell a scan-dal...) and the very last panel is a very touching shot of Reynard walking away from her tombstone.
It reads: "Lupe: A mother and a hero to us all."
And that's it.
Now for my reaction. This is the very first story with Lupe I've ever read, and she had to DIE?!!
I mean, the reason I keep saying it doesn't feel real is that it happened too FAST! Compare this to the way Mello Bumblebee--a VERY minor character--died in the Chaotix Caper trilogy. First he got a very dramatic death-scene. Then Charmy just broke down and FLUNG himself onto the shoulder of the nearest person, overcome with emotion. In the second issue of the trilogy, we saw all kinds of cute rosy-coloured flashbacks about him (Mello, not Charmy--well, him too, actually) and then in the third, we have that really sad funeral scene with Charmy giving a heart-wrenching monologue and tossing one, perfect, rose onto the coffin just before they bury it.
Now THAT, my friend, is how you handle the death of a good guy.
Compare that to what Lupe got--okay, so she died for a much more noble reason than Mello did, and in a much braver way, but STILL, it was too freaking FAST! No mourners, no flashbacks, no memories, no tears. And it was over in SIX PAGES!!
And Lupe was a MUCH more important character than Mello.
So as far as I'm concerned, this didn't happen. I don't DO lousy writing. If you ask me, I will say to the end that Lupe is still alive.
Computer, end program.
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tourists have stopped by to read Lupe's solo story since October 8, 1999. Of course, they all ended up wanting Ken Penders' head on a plate!