2 out of 5

This is so close to scraping bottom.

Apparently Sonic and Mega Man’s worlds will unite, but despite panel after panel of exposition and pages attempting to summarize the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle, I sorta have no idea why.

The Mega Man half of this comic (it’s a flip book, one story on one side, one on the other) is senseless.  The six pencillers attached to the art make it big and floaty, but the layouts are abysmal; the panels seem stitched together incorrectly several times.  The pitch of baddie Xander Payne being in jail used as the focal point for relating something something Unitings would probably work, except I have no clue who’s narrating and the tense seems to change repeatedly such that I’m not sure if we’re reading a recap or a flashback or… something else, I don’t know.  And then after all that confusion, we get a ‘The Story So Far…’ two pager which either conflicts or retells or supports what we just read, or has no impact on it.

The Sonic side does better, with clear art from Adam Bryce Thomas and a straight-forward story that effectively leads in to Robotnik’s connection to the crossover, with The Story So Far… drawing a clear line from A to B.  Maybe if I had read this side first, my opinion wouldn’t be so low.  And I feel it’s important to note that, since this side makes sense, the confusion in the Mega Man side might be because of two factors: the art, and huge-ass MM history.

Either way, while Worlds Unite satisfies my criteria of giving the reader full stories, and points of reference for how the book fits into the larger story, the Mega Man side is so poorly executed and confusing that it stifles any interest I’d have in the Sonic side.  Although maybe that’s a fair representation of the comic…?