Commentary for July 28, 2022:

Here’s a thing I’ve noticed in modern comics; you don’t tend to get inner monologues from characters. In fact, on the occasions I do see them, I’m always a little surprised and taken aback by them. What you tend to see instead of thought bubbles these days are characters narrating, a little bit like how Silver was doing at the start of Chapter 39. This is a very common narrative tool that was used in the run of Transformers comics written by John Barber between 2011 and 2018. I have to admit, sometimes it feels a little pretentious, but it works when it’s done well. But that kind of character narration is often the only way we, the reader, get to know what a character is thinking.

So, in a mainstream, published comic, I imagine a scene like this wouldn’t tell us what Sonic’s thinking, unless he was narrating... which he wouldn’t be, because he’s not the protagonist of this story. Instead, we’d get four panels of Sonic doing stuff in complete silence. Maybe I’m working from an old-fashioned mindset here that says it’s okay to show a character’s inner monologue, or maybe it’s actually a lack of confidence that the pictures can give my readers the necessary context on their own. Maybe it’s both.

It’s probably both.