Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[Razule]

15 minutes ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

I hate to ask this, but shouldn't Ian Flynn technically own Scourge?

No, Ken wrote the story that Evil Sonic was introduced in, and Evil Sonic and Scourge are very much the same character.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 minutes ago, Razule said:

No, Ken wrote the story that Evil Sonic was introduced in, and Evil Sonic and Scourge are very much the same character.

But technically speaking, isn't Evil Sonic basically Sonic as an evil character? If that's the case, then SEGA technically owns Evil Sonic since Sonic is their character.

[MetalSkulkBane]

14 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

But technically speaking, isn't Evil Sonic basically Sonic as an evil character? If that's the case, then SEGA technically owns Evil Sonic since Sonic is their character.

Yes, but no one at Sega cares enough to court again, so it seems they said "whatever".

[Ryannumber1gamer]

It's not that Penders owns Scourge, it's that he claims he does on very dubious terms (The same way he tries to claim he owns Robo-Robotnik and Shade), and SEGA really don't see enough of a reason to chance yet another court battle with him for the sake of characters from a comic continuity that was only a big thing in America, and is now irrelevant. 

SEGA would probably win if it went that far, because it's incredibly difficult to copyright 'Evil' *character*, or something like Robo-Robotnik, and if you wanna use the same line of logic - means anyone could slap 'Evil' onto any of Ken's characters and claim it's their own creation as well. But again, it's not worth their time to do so. There's very little benefit from it, and from what I recall, Scourge just ended up among those who got removed as more caution than 'you have to do it', just because neither Archie or SEGA wanted to deal with Penders' bullshit yet again.

 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Sorry, my ride arrived before I got to continue.

Long version is: Scourge was created under contract for a licensed comic book, and the way that is [i]supposed[/i] to go is that the IP holder is supposed to be the beneficiary of the works done under contract.

In Transformers' case, Marvel created several characters that Hasbro has the rights to and still use today, from Scrounge to Impactor to Primus himself. But if Marvel had special interest in a character (usually a non-transforming robot character), they would introduce them somewhere else first, then insert them into Transformers. Cases include Circuit Breaker making a cameo in Secret Wars II and Death's Head (who also crossed over with Doctor Who on his way to joining the main Marvel Universe).

With Scourge, Ian has said he did not create the character. As I recall, the concept came from whoever the editor was at the time, who collaborated with Spaz (I think) on the design, and then Ian wrote a story that explained the change. (Someone feel free to correct me if I'm off here.)

So if anyone should own Scourge, it's SEGA. But due to corporate incompetence and predatory shenanigans, they ambiguously do not. 
 

That said, even if not SEGA, Ian is apparently down the list of people who could really lay any sort of claim to him specifically (other characters may and will vary).

[Zonic 2099]

I can't help but find it hilarious that Harvey Who made only one appearance before Ian took over is on the cover while characters like Amy, Dulcy, Nack didn't make the cut.

[babsiwuff]

So this is making the rounds.  Is it enough grounds to debunk Ken using these characters?

 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

11 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

So this is making the rounds.  Is it enough grounds to debunk Ken using these characters?

Not really. I'm pretty sure that stuff has been brought up before. And even if it might be, I don't think anyone on SEGA's side cares enough to go to war again over something that never should have been an issue in the first place and that they've since moved on from.

5 hours ago, Zonic 2099 said:

I can't help but find it hilarious that Harvey Who made only one appearance before Ian took over is on the cover while characters like Amy, Dulcy, Nack didn't make the cut.

Hilarious in hindsight, but not the least bit surprising. I made a post here some pages back detailing all the stuff from the games which had storytelling potential yet went unused in the pre-Ian, pre-Adventure era, despite claims there was "nothing there." They would just rather do their own stuff than work with any part of the license for their licensed comic book.

If Penders is going to flesh out unused covers as convention prints, though, I don't know why he'd waste time with trash like Endgame when he could be giving the people what they really want: The Trial of the Century!

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/581675565201027072

[Razule]

That has surfaced before, and will again. A big part of the reason the lawsuit went as far as it did was because Penders' original work-for-hire contract with Archie was lost, among others. Their lawyers couldn't prove it ever physically existed. And the screenshot still doesn't specifically say that he, Kenneth Penders Jr, signed a contract with Archie. Of course SEGA should own everything in the comics, but without a copy of Penders' original contract, the rights default to him. 

[babsiwuff]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

That has surfaced before, and will again. A big part of the reason the lawsuit went as far as it did was because Penders' original work-for-hire contract with Archie was lost, among others. Their lawyers couldn't prove it ever physically existed. And the screenshot still doesn't specifically say that he, Kenneth Penders Jr, signed a contract with Archie. Of course SEGA should own everything in the comics, but without a copy of Penders' original contract, the rights default to him. 

That reminds me of all the weird stuff he’s tried to do with them.  Does he still license them out?  Is he still planning on NFTs?

[LMaster562]

Razule, that's mostly correct. In the 90s, a bunch of contracts were destroyed as most of us know. This became a thing where Archie rushed a bunch of replacements to be signed. Ken did state under oath (contradicting himself at times) that he'd signed contracts in one of the transcripts that later came out, have to find all of the links. Doesn't matter much, because they settled anyways. When the replacements all happened Archie rushed to replace them because the children of one of the earlier creators were suing over ownership and making sure contracts were intact became important. Also settled in that case. Think this was around 96/97. These are the very strange ones that copies of were brought into court in the Penders case. This period is also important because Dan Decarlo sued shortly after the new millenium due to strange residuals issues and going for ownership as a bunch of properties were being adapted into tv and movies, and lost because they showed multiple sets of contracts had been signed. Archie's original lawyers tried to use this as precedence in the Penders case.

Of course, it's not quite known if it was lack of certain clauses in the replacements since they did seemed rushed, or that they were only copies. Sometime in the 2000s there's the story of Archie's warehouse flooding (first of many times) and a lot of content just being boxed and stored in the warehouse after what they could was salvaged. There were comments about finding a treasure trove of back content and concept art in one of the collections' convention editions around 2010 I think? Need to find the copy of that too. Might have just been a Story at a panel. So after all of these decades when Bioware did Chronicles, Ken started making Copyrights (which recently people noted he did so for stories, and it might not be applicable to characters the way he thinks) but both sides settled because it would have been drawn out and costly if anyone forced the issue.

So, Ken stated in the 90s and during the trial there were contracts. The maintanance of which became the hinge issue. It was really a crazy chain of happenstance. 

[Leebo4]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:44 PM, King Scoopa Koopa said:

Not really. I'm pretty sure that stuff has been brought up before. And even if it might be, I don't think anyone on SEGA's side cares enough to go to war again over something that never should have been an issue in the first place and that they've since moved on from.

Hilarious in hindsight, but not the least bit surprising. I made a post here some pages back detailing all the stuff from the games which had storytelling potential yet went unused in the pre-Ian, pre-Adventure era, despite claims there was "nothing there." They would just rather do their own stuff than work with any part of the license for their licensed comic book.

If Penders is going to flesh out unused covers as convention prints, though, I don't know why he'd waste time with trash like Endgame when he could be giving the people what they really want: The Trial of the Century!

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/581675565201027072

Can I ask if you know where the post is please?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

3 hours ago, Leebo4 said:

Can I ask if you know where the post is please?

[url=https://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/18097-the-lara-su-chronicles-and-ken-penders-topic-read-page-164-post-4096/?do=findComment&comment=1314790]Here you go[/url], but for one thing -- it's been long enough that I forgot I deemed it too long for a post, and attached it as a .txt file.

More specifics are in the post, though.

Speaking of which, I wish there was a way for the forum to bookmark it somehow.

[Leebo4]

2 hours ago, King Scoopa Koopa said:

[url=https://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/18097-the-lara-su-chronicles-and-ken-penders-topic-read-page-164-post-4096/?do=findComment&comment=1314790]Here you go[/url], but for one thing -- it's been long enough that I forgot I deemed it too long for a post, and attached it as a .txt file.

More specifics are in the post, though.

Speaking of which, I wish there was a way for the forum to bookmark it somehow.

Thanks

[Zonic 2099]

I'm sorry, what? Considering they are still at war with Eggman ruling much of the planet that doesn't sound like the right time and two considering he wanted Mobius 25 Years to be the canonical boring future and Sally still was the queen, that means either it wouldn't stick or this this is a new idea Ken just came up with much like his plans for King Sonic & Lara-Su time space shenanigans happening in issue 200 alongside Antoine and Bunnie's wedding.

[Promethean0416]

Seems like an idea he just pulled out of the magic plotline hat considering what his so-called "canon future" was in the series. In regards to a nation state/democracy, the closest we got was from Mr. Flynn in the form of the Council of Acorn (IIRC), before it was Genesified.

(The below is a "what if" scenario)

If this is a new idea he wants to try and incorporate in his LSC series with the original stories from the old run, he's likely going to have to do some serious rewriting and redrawing, thus pushing him back several steps further, practically almost back at square one.

EDIT: Unless the magic fog from his prequel helps to thicken the plot a bit more...

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Oh gee. Once again, Penders magically connects a far better work to his own to make it seem genius somehow.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I don't buy that he planned that back in 2005... I don't think anybody does.

[Leebo4]

Especially since didn’t he write the king as always proven right even if he should be wrong and treated as an antagonist for this decision 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

3 hours ago, DaddlerTheDalek said:

I don't buy that he planned that back in 2005... I don't think anybody does.

Well, Promethean said he pulled it from a magic plot line hat, but I was thinking he pulled the whole of his statement out of something else...

[horridus]

11 hours ago, Zonic 2099 said:

I'm sorry, what? Considering they are still at war with Eggman ruling much of the planet that doesn't sound like the right time and two considering he wanted Mobius 25 Years to be the canonical boring future and Sally still was the queen, that minds either it wouldn't stick or this this is a new idea Ken just came up with much like his plans for King Sonic & Lara-Su time space shenanigans happening in issue 200 alongside Antoine and Bunnie's wedding.

Yeah, no. Ever since the first time we got a peak at Mobius' future in the "In Your Face" special, Penders has consistently stayed THAT course, right down to Sonic and Sally's future offspring being a set of twins. At every opportunity he's had to write about the future or its hypotheticals it's been like that, whether it was 25YL proper or in Sally's vision from the Girl's Rule special.

Penders is just pretending he had Big Ideas He Was Totally Gonna Do because at the end of the day he doesn't actually need to prove or follow up on any of them. In all the time he spent obsessing over the Royal Drama he had ample opportunity to put an end to it all and do as he says here, and did not. He's just playing at being an anti-monarchist... hell, just look at the way he obsessed over a similar family of great power and important (IE The Guardians). 

I mean seriously, this is a guy who makes a whole boring ass storyline about how Echidnapolis government works, and then later down the line reveals that oh, actually, Echidnapolis is a THEOCRACY. This is not a man who plans things like this in advance. 

[Promethean0416]

Yep, and now we know that Elias will probably not be in his LSC series anytime soon aside from at least one mention so far...

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

You know, for a minute I though "geez, does Ken always circles back to himself and his work?"

Then I remembered that other tweets just aren't quoted here ^^;

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

16 hours ago, horridus said:

Yeah, no. Ever since the first time we got a peak at Mobius' future in the "In Your Face" special, Penders has consistently stayed THAT course, right down to Sonic and Sally's future offspring being a set of twins. At every opportunity he's had to write about the future or its hypotheticals it's been like that, whether it was 25YL proper or in Sally's vision from the Girl's Rule special.

Penders is just pretending he had Big Ideas He Was Totally Gonna Do because at the end of the day he doesn't actually need to prove or follow up on any of them. In all the time he spent obsessing over the Royal Drama he had ample opportunity to put an end to it all and do as he says here, and did not. He's just playing at being an anti-monarchist... hell, just look at the way he obsessed over a similar family of great power and important (IE The Guardians). 

I mean seriously, this is a guy who makes a whole boring ass storyline about how Echidnapolis government works, and then later down the line reveals that oh, actually, Echidnapolis is a THEOCRACY. This is not a man who plans things like this in advance. 

This is one of the rare occasions where we've gotten much more "behind-the-scenes" material, then the actual material we were supposed to get.

[babsiwuff]

I don’t get this guy.  He has echidnas and dogs and skunks but none of it is furry art.  And he has direct relations to SatAM characters, and Knuckles, but swears the comic has not related to Sonic.

And then there’s his remastering of M25YL which literally has Sonic in it, that he refuses to let go of, even now:

Why can’t he just let this go and move on?  Isn’t he a big shot Hollywood movie producer now?