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

[StreetSonic2022]

8 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm actually going to go to bat for Karl Bollers. Karl was the main writer of the main series, as Penders had opted to focus solely on the Knuckles side stuff that would be going on in the back-up stories, and while Penders was free to do whatever bullshit he wanted with little oversight, Bollers was the one stuck dealing with the mandates coming in from Archie.

It's easy to blame Bollers for shit that happened in the Dork Age, but as documented via Thanks Ken Penders, quite a lot of that was pushed onto him by Archie's oversight, aiming to try make the book more in-line with their usual brand of comics, and pushing in melodrama. A lot of the love triangle nonsense and high school shit from his run was stuff he was just told to do, and he made the best of a bad situation. Meanwhile, other arcs like Return to Angel Island, where he had full creative control showed up what he could really do with this universe when he wasn't being commanded by the publishers.

Penders' mistakes mostly go at his feet because he had been given free reign. Bollers did not get such a luxury. The most weird shit he can be accused of in his own terms was the alien stuff towards #125 and that's about it.

Gotcha, so basically Gabrie said to Bollers: follow what comic book stories were doing, at the time. (With Bollers' screaming at his mind: Hello, Sonic has how many concepts and games out that we could incorporate in the book and you want me to write THAT?!!) Penders getting full reign while mentally screaming MY KNUCKLES BOOK IS CANCELLED!!! (but still able to continue!)

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Since it seems kinda relevant again, here's a post I made a couple of years ago detailing elements of the Genesis games that were either used or left on the table by the pre-Ian writers.

Naturally, it could go a LOT further, but I've only so much time on my hands.

On 2/6/2021 at 12:37 AM, King Scoopa Koopa said:

Okay, so this stuff has been driving me crazy. Not just when it was brought up last March, but for a long, long time prior to that. So I did something I've been meaning to do for some time now.

Over the past year, between other projects and stuff I've been working on, I've been chipping away at the following: Basically a list of virtually every major component of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise that was available to the writers of the Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog publication at the time. That means no cartoon stuff, no anime, no Japanese game materials. We're talking the games released in the US, their manuals, and their contents.

Okay, fine. I'm ready to play ball. Let's see how much more there is that went untouched -- all before Ian came along, mind. He was kind of a game changer (no pun intended) in that respect.

I have over 8,000 words, about 20 pages of material here. And it's not even being especially thorough! But it is more than I feel like could be reasonably posted here, so I've attached it as a .txt document for anyone brave enough to go through it.

Oh, and please forgive the formatting -- it was intended to be a forum post here, until I finished and saw the size of what I'd created. Just attaching it seemed like the best compromise.

SonicStuff.txt 48.3 kB · 30 downloads

 

[Promethean0416]

I remember that he tried to return Angel Island back to what it was before back in #150 (I think?) after it was reduced to almost nothing back at the Angel Island arc without explanation on how it got rebuilt, only for it to be returned back to what it was before the Enerjak arc.

Anyway, looks like he is about done with "Mr. 'Botnik" there:

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, Promethean0416 said:

I remember that he tried to return Angel Island back to what it was before back in #150 (I think?) after it was reduced to almost nothing back at the Angel Island arc without explanation on how it got rebuilt, only for it to be returned back to what it was before the Enerjak arc.

Anyway, looks like he is about done with "Mr. 'Botnik" there:

Pretty much, yes. He wasn’t happy that Bollers ‘played’ in his Toybox, and reverted everything. The real truth of the matter is unlike Penders’ deluded bullshit about how the Dark Legion could apparently beat Eggman easily, and Lien-Da could defeat him no matter what, Bollers was far more sensible.

By this point in the comics, the echidnas were a crowd of selfish and useless assholes who allowed Eggman to conquer Mobius because ‘it didn’t concern them’. Something Penders believed was genuinely a justified decision, while Bollers decided to do actually do something by having the echidnas pay the consequences for their inaction.

Unlike Penders, who wanted the Echidnas to be some infallible society, and Knuckles was always in the wrong for not abiding by their rules, writers like Bollers and Flynn did the sensible thing by having Knuckles’ decisions to help others by a good attribute. Knuckles joining those on Mobius to fight Eggman is the primary reason he escapes the fates of the other Guardians and Echidnas, which was suffering a gigantic humiliation for their ignorance, and having Eggman steamroll them, with the Dark Legion presented as absolutely overwhelmed, and easily at that.

Return to Angel Island ultimately had two goals - to do something with the Echidnas finally, which was showing realistically that they’re no more immune to Eggman’s military force than anyone else, as well as forcing them to suffer consequences for their selfishness, and to bring the Echidnas closer to the SEGA lore, which is why when Eggman conquers and enslaves them, their attires become more traditional and closer to the echidnas we see in the Knuckles clan in SA1.

Needless to say, Penders didn’t like this and tried to brush past it to show all of the Echidnas having recovered ridiculously quickly. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t long after that Flynn took the reigns and reverted that, having Enerjak Knuckles devastate them even further, and act as the ultimate consequence for the Guardians’ selfish behaviour and awful experiments.

[babsiwuff]

4 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

I remember that he tried to return Angel Island back to what it was before back in #150 (I think?) after it was reduced to almost nothing back at the Angel Island arc without explanation on how it got rebuilt, only for it to be returned back to what it was before the Enerjak arc.

Anyway, looks like he is about done with "Mr. 'Botnik" there:

Not gonna lie. His colours and shading are so stark that it’s starting to hurt my eyes.  Especially with all the other characters he plans to cram in there.

[horridus]

4 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

I remember that he tried to return Angel Island back to what it was before back in #150 (I think?) after it was reduced to almost nothing back at the Angel Island arc without explanation on how it got rebuilt, only for it to be returned back to what it was before the Enerjak arc.

Anyway, looks like he is about done with "Mr. 'Botnik" there:

Oh, very much so. Between Echidnapolis falling and then making the entirely reasonable claim that 25YL was only a 'possible' future, Penders claimed that Bollers was trying to 'undermine' him, even trying to make it out that he had somehow gone over Penders' head when it came to Return to Angel Island. He basically chose to pave over the events of that story and worked to return things to the Status Quo of his preference as quickly as he could during his final run on the book, not only confirming it in a later interview but saying he'd do the same if he ever came back to Archie. This was before the lawsuit, mind you.

I also cannot help but be slightly amused by the color scheme he's given Robotnik here. While Robotnik's precise color scheme in Archie wasn't always consistent, one thing that WAS kept consistent was his cape being yellow... and yet despite this being the book that gave him a career, he evidently can't be bothered to remember even that much, and his understanding of color theory reamins so terrible he doesn't see how having the cape be red causes it to blend together with Robotnik's body, while the yellow cap provided a contrast that allowed it to stand out.

15 hours ago, babsiwuff said:

  That reminds me of something Ken said.  He says Bollers stories are valid to the Lara Su comics he's obsessed about, but that Ian's weren't.  Why  I thought Karl Bollers went against Ken as well.

Simple- he can't really ignore Return to Angel Island. His writing afterwards is built upon what happened in it, even if he was doing everything he could to reverse the course it set and get things back to their 'proper' order. And try to recall that while he says that about Flynn's stuff, he's still trying to act as if Scourge will be a thing in all of this. The man's a walking contradiction whose so used to lying about crap he can't keep track of it all.

[babsiwuff]

I honestly didn't notice that about Robotnik's cape, but bleh.  The whole thing is starting to look stark and confusing and off model.  Gotta love how he plans to do an entire comic with no sense of colour.  

Speaking of which, I was looking back on old forum posts he made way back when, courtesy of the wayback machine.  Can you believe that weird Shattered Tomorrows cover is 9 years old now?!  What irks me is how he refused to change Lara Su's skimpy bathing suit to something less revealing despite women in the target audience telling him how degrading that was.

Gotta love how consistently gross he is and how none of that had changed one bit. 

[Promethean0416]

6 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

I honestly didn't notice that about Robotnik's cape, but bleh.  The whole thing is starting to look stark and confusing and off model.  Gotta love how he plans to do an entire comic with no sense of colour.  

Speaking of which, I was looking back on old forum posts he made way back when, courtesy of the wayback machine.  Can you believe that weird Shattered Tomorrows cover is 9 years old now?!  What irks me is how he refused to change Lara Su's skimpy bathing suit to something less revealing despite women in the target audience telling him how degrading that was.

Gotta love how consistently gross he is and how none of that had changed one bit. 

Yeah, though he did not hesitate to change Lara-Su's face into something more uncanny valley as well as adding an almost invisible nose ring. 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/1639153074400018433/photo/1

Edited May 22, 2023 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

5 hours ago, horridus said:

The man's a walking contradiction whose so used to lying about crap he can't keep track of it all.

It's been years since I last heard this song, but this just blasted back into my memory after reading this.

Watching the video, it feels incredibly appropriate for Penders -- particularly all the stuff the band does and how it affects them and the people around them.

Also funny is how this is like the second piece of '90s media in less than a week that's reminded me of Penders (or I guess vice-versa).

[Promethean0416]

Looks like someone has brought up the cape issue with Robotnik, guess we'll see how he responds to that...

[babsiwuff]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Looks like someone has brought up the cape issue with Robotnik, guess we'll see how he responds to that...

Look at his tweet.  He’s not as sure of himself as he always is.  I wonder what’s going on.

[horridus]

4 hours ago, babsiwuff said:

Look at his tweet.  He’s not as sure of himself as he always is.  I wonder what’s going on.

I don't think that's him being self-aware so much as its humble bragging. I could be wrong, but any time it ever looks like Penders might be self-aware its usually just the lull before the next grand demonstration of egoism.

[babsiwuff]

5 hours ago, horridus said:

I don't think that's him being self-aware so much as its humble bragging. I could be wrong, but any time it ever looks like Penders might be self-aware its usually just the lull before the next grand demonstration of egoism.

Oh HERE we go.  You were bang on with that call.  Because now he's making claims that he controls everything past the genesis wave:

 

[Promethean0416]

Ah yes, that. Pretty sure it was already stated that the history of that character was removed in the reboot, unless he is trying to claim Eggman now...

EDIT: Addendum.

With this, wondering if now he had a larger role of Archie losing the license than originally thought?

Edited May 24, 2023 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[babsiwuff]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Ah yes, that. Pretty sure it was already stated that the history of that character was removed in the reboot, unless he is trying to claim Eggman now...

EDIT: Addendum.

With this, wondering if now he had a larger role of Archie losing the license than originally thought?

The reboot is everything after Genesis Wave.  Ken had 1000000% nothing to do with that, and the whole Robo-Robotnik thing is moot.  Eggman is Eggman from the games.  That's it.  If he's saying he has control and responsibility over things he had nothing to do with, he's crazier than I thought he was.

[horridus]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Ah yes, that. Pretty sure it was already stated that the history of that character was removed in the reboot, unless he is trying to claim Eggman now...

EDIT: Addendum.

With this, wondering if now he had a larger role of Archie losing the license than originally thought?

Penders has long maintained a deeply asinine notion that Eggman as he appears in Archie is in fact 'his' character since he began as Robo-Robotnik, and that this extends into Eggman being used in the Post-Reboot as well.

To be blunt, I wouldn't trust a thing that comes out of this man's mouth. He's been caught lying about matters pertaining to the lawsuit in the past on multiple occasions and has a near pathological need to re-frame things in such a way as to look more beneficial for him. The simple truth is that neither SEGA nor Archie saw much worth in maintaining their old relationship and found it easier to just toss the whole thing out, and that not having to deal with him is all the reason in the world for no Archie reprints to happen so long as he's alive.

[babsiwuff]

1 minute ago, horridus said:

Penders has long maintained a deeply asinine notion that Eggman as he appears in Archie is in fact 'his' character since he began as Robo-Robotnik, and that this extends into Eggman being used in the Post-Reboot as well.

To be blunt, I wouldn't trust a thing that comes out of this man's mouth. He's been caught lying about matters pertaining to the lawsuit in the past on multiple occasions and has a near pathological need to re-frame things in such a way as to look more beneficial for him. The simple truth is that neither SEGA nor Archie saw much worth in maintaining their old relationship and found it easier to just toss the whole thing out, and that not having to deal with him is all the reason in the world for no Archie reprints to happen so long as he's alive.

But like if IDW wanted to reprint stuff, this jackass can't stand in their way.  I'd absolutely love to see him try.

[horridus]

1 minute ago, babsiwuff said:

But like if IDW wanted to reprint stuff, this jackass can't stand in their way.  I'd absolutely love to see him try.

Yep. At the end of it it depends on what IDW wants, but more importantly, what SEGA wants. If SEGA doesn't want Archie reprints, then there won't be any Archie reprints. He's a nonentity in all of this.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

6 minutes ago, horridus said:

Yep. At the end of it it depends on what IDW wants, but more importantly, what SEGA wants. If SEGA doesn't want Archie reprints, then there won't be any Archie reprints. He's a nonentity in all of this.

Penders has been mainly driving in the curve of SEGA not bothering with certain stories to make it seem like he has power over them.

[The Tenth Doctor]

I'm pretty sure that the reboot showed a different history for Robotnik, meaning Robo-Robotnik was never a thing. He's a new Eggman, no links to his past self. Nothing to stand on Ken. I know its obvious, just bares repeating.

[horridus]

6 hours ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

I'm pretty sure that the reboot showed a different history for Robotnik, meaning Robo-Robotnik was never a thing. He's a new Eggman, no links to his past self. Nothing to stand on Ken. I know its obvious, just bares repeating.

Yep- Super Digest 12 delved into his backstory a bit, revealing he had worked for GUN and started his plans for world conquest there, before moving on to trick King Acorn ala SatAM. Whoever Eggman was before the reboot had been overwritten.

[Promethean0416]

What plan has exactly been cooking up regarding this "project's" development for the past 12+ years? Just some preview pages, brief demos with monotone voice acting, and loads of unnecessary fluff (especially with Anthony Mackie in there)?

Or is it his 20XX release plan, which I think he was trying for Apple, but who knows how and when he will release the blasted whatchamacallit...

Or maybe it has something to do with these so-called delays, which as I recall, the main reason is playing the waiting game with Sega?

EDIT: Another addendum:

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Promethean0416

[PinkFloydMania]

So SEGA owns the copyrights to the comics, but not the stories in the comics... ? Am I stupid, how does that make any sense?

[Promethean0416]

15 minutes ago, PinkFloydMania said:

So SEGA owns the copyrights to the comics, but not the stories in the comics... ? Am I stupid, how does that make any sense?

In the language of the Penders:

I'm still wrapping my head around this, is the script separate from the actual comic? I know characters can be copyrighted by design, but this is just baffling...

[PinkFloydMania]

I'm just going to chalk this one up to him talking out of his ass once again, unless we just simply aren't on the same plane of existence as this dude.