Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[PublicEnemy1]

17 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Honestly, who gives a shit? He's been at this for about 12 years now and ran a personal forum for about half of that. And despite what some might think, he has never struck me as a guy who can't handle the polarizing reactions of a fanbase, never one related to Sonic.

Just wondering, because I'm happy that he's not another Penders.

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

Just wondering, because I'm happy that he's not another Penders.

I'd agree, but I'm avoiding that bandwagon unless necessary.

[PublicEnemy1]

9 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I'd agree, but I'm avoiding that bandwagon unless necessary.

Seems fair.

[Razule]

1 hour ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

So in the latest BumbleKast episode (60), Ian said a couple things that interested me:
1. He noted the coverage he got as a result of him announcing that his characters won't appear in IDW (around the 10 minute mark) and he said something along the lines of "it's complicated and everything is subject to change."
2. In the the Q&A section (the 5th question, IIRC) one person asked if Ian took criticism, which he says that he does, and acknowledges that he isn't a perfect writer.
What are y'alls thoughts on this?

Well.. what is there to think? Not like it's anything we didn't already know or something uncharacteristic for him to say. He knows he's not flawless, great, he's not Kenneth.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Late response, but I wanted to clear some things up.

Quote

Yeah, I even said initially that Omega does have fans. But you just said that it was exactly the same situation for him as every other character, and I'm saying that's not true and lack of popularity does have a factor in his lack of attention even if he does have a small set of fans. This is something that can be assessed if you look around fandom pools and see how much they're discussed, how much art they get and other things that show interest in them.

Actually, what I said was that him not getting enough focus occurs even among popular characters like Blaze, Rouge, and even the  Chaotix who have suffered from the lack of attention. Not that his popularity is the same as every other character.

Don’t twist my words now.

And even discussion in fandom pools and art is not a clear assessment of anything. I wouldn’t use that to support even Shadow’s popularity even with how vocal people can be about him.

14 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

On 1/9/2018 at 7:16 PM, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

 

Omega doesn't get as much focus as anyone. 

You care, that's neat. No one doesn't mean literally no one, but it means a lot of folks. 

Omega was gone, several times before... no one cares.

Probably because when he was gone he either didn’t suffer whatever stupid mess other characters got messed up by sonic Team over or because he was gone or hardly used along more than half the cast with him—that last one would be ironic given how that has been a subject of complaint nowadays.

14 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I don't think it would work, characters who fall out of the uniform sonic design scheme tend to not be popularity

You never know what will work or not unless you—or in this case Sonic Team—actually tries and puts forth a decent effort.

Never mind that Omega is actually a badnik, which never actually had a uniform design scheme by intention given that they’re always diverse. The only thing that they fall under is that they were made by Eggman.

14 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Me saying " no one cares" isn't an absolute.

Yes, it actually is. And if you don’t want people to treat it as such then you’re better off not saying that.

[PublicEnemy1]

Sorry for pointing information that really doesn't matter much. I'm just grabbing straws, because the wait for some actual news is kinda killing me here. At least the solicits are coming soon.

[Red Hot Jack]

On ‎10‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 3:37 AM, PublicEnemy1 said:

If SEGA does decide to take the route of game adaptations, one thing I'd like to see in this comic is a Black Knight adaptation (that isn't a straight-up retelling of the game like Archie was) that focusing on the knights more, as well as adding Galahad and Lamorak to the story, and maybe even introducing more knights. Anybody think that this is a good idea?

Yeah, the wait is killing me too.  Anyway, I don't think this is a good idea, because... it's something we've already explored, wouldn't it be more fun to see different storybook worlds? Something new?

Also, so the new bumblekast already came out? Dang it, I just asked Ian some questions on twitter, like, if he can use Infinite, and what's his status after Forces, if he's alive or not, that cutscene is very confusing. I really want to see more of him.

One more thing, I think the only way we can kill time for waiting, is to discuss more and speculate (which we are already doing), so let's keep it up!

Edit: I listened to the bumblekast, Ian confirms that Classic and Modern are separate entities, who share some elements and some are different, starting from Mania when the Phantom Ruby screwed up things... or was it starting with Generations and the Time Eater who created split timelines? I'm still confused...

[Dr. Detective]

On 1/10/2018 at 3:34 AM, Maxtiis said:

The way Ian handled Omega's introduction in the post-Genesis wave stories was very well done. Having him interact with Gamma was a very creative means of instilling his sense of purpose compared to Sonic Heroes where honestly I don't think it makes sense that Omega would suddenly grow to hate Eggman just for having him locked in a room to guard Shadow. Machines don't just develop autonomy by choice like that, they just follow orders which is what he was doing.

Just by this arc alone I'd consider myself a fan of Omega. He's a bit one note admittedly, but Ian wrote him well at Archie, I'm sure we'll continue seeing that same quality in IDW's new series. Maybe he'll even do more with Gamma before he inevitably dies; a rogue, assassin, Eggman robot is such a cool idea I'd like to see more done with it.

It's the total opposite for me.

I thought having him interact with Gamma was silly and the whole thing of putting his soul literally inside of Omega was hammy and weird on a level that felt like it was putting Gamma on a strange pedestal of spiritual importance. It felt like he was being treated as some sort of agent of God or something when in reality, the thing I liked about Gamma's story was that it was just a far off, disconnected circumstance that came about when a robot's sentience granted him empathy the likes of which had yet to be explored within Eggman's robots up to that point. He had a very quiet and satisfactory end that was so far off to the side that not even Amy found out about it.

The thing I loved about Omega was also gutted significantly by this to the point where it took me a while to warm up to him in the Archie comics. The thing that drew me towards him was how incredibly selfish his motivation was and how admirably unsympathetic he was to everything around him. It's very creative and interesting having a character like him in a series like this where his primary motivation is fueled by a desire for revenge. He's a character who was built to be the very strongest in the line of robots he was created from and unlike Gamma whose sentience granted him empathy for the plight of his brothers, Omega’s sentience granted him the exact opposite, to where he’s so immersed with the desire to be the strongest that being sealed off for the sake of guarding something seemingly more valuable to Eggman than himself overloaded the Deadly Sin of Pride meter on his stone-cold metal hull.

Having that as the foundation for him made it all the more incredible to me as a kid when I saw the very last cutscene of Team Dark and watched him actually respond to Rouge’s concern that Shadow might be a robot before walking off. It was the first time in the game where he got a word of comfort in on the dilemma of someone other than himself. Rouge probably didn’t expect him to even care which is why she was about to tell him “Nevermind. Good luck.” before leaving. But he stopped her and reassured her that the original Shadow might still be alive. I like that.

You don’t need to shove Gamma’s soul into him to draw moments like that out of him.

I didn't mind how over the top they were taking his love for destruction as, on the surface, it was funny enough. One of my favorite panels in the whole book is when Omega meets the little Fixit robot and asks if it knows how to destroy things and it just responds by saying it can only fix. And the next panel is of them in the same positions but it's completely quiet with Omega just staring at him. Stuff like that is great. But then you get really whacked out nonsense like him falling in weird pseudo love with Blaze and making weird curtsy movements with his body as though he's shy when he asks if it's okay if they burn things together again in the future or something. 

I also didn’t really like the idea that he was outright confirmed to be a part of GUN. The idea that he helps them out when he so desires allures me a bit more.

As a huge fan of Omega, it naturally took me a long time before I was okay with his Archie portrayal. This is one of those cases where the differences made him a little too different for him to completely be the guy I loved in Heroes so much. If there was anything I would have changed about Heroes, is that I would have expanded more on the situation with him and Eggman instead of leaving it to one line of dialogue like they did. There’s something there that could have been beefed up to make a more interesting character study than what I feel Ian went with.

However, I’m in the minority on that.

[Shadowlax]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It's the total opposite for me.

I thought having him interact with Gamma was silly and the whole thing of putting his soul literally inside of Omega was hammy and weird on a level that felt like it was putting Gamma on a strange pedestal of spiritual importance. It felt like he was being treated as some sort of agent of God or something when in reality, the thing I liked about Gamma's story was that it was just a far off, disconnected circumstance that came about when a robot's sentience granted him empathy the likes of which had yet to be explored within Eggman's robots up to that point. He had a very quiet and satisfactory end that was so far off to the side that not even Amy found out about it.

The thing I loved about Omega was also gutted significantly by this to the point where it took me a while to warm up to him in the Archie comics. The thing that drew me towards him was how incredibly selfish his motivation was and how admirably unsympathetic he was to everything around him. It's very creative and interesting having a character like him in a series like this where his primary motivation is fueled by a desire for revenge. He's a character who was built to be the very strongest in the line of robots he was created from and unlike Gamma whose sentience granted him empathy for the plight of his brothers, Omega’s sentience granted him the exact opposite, to where he’s so immersed with the desire to be the strongest that being sealed off for the sake of guarding something seemingly more valuable to Eggman than himself overloaded the Deadly Sin of Pride meter on his stone-cold metal hull.

Having that as the foundation for him made it all the more incredible to me as a kid when I saw the very last cutscene of Team Dark and watched him actually respond to Rouge’s concern that Shadow might be a robot before walking off. It was the first time in the game where he got a word of comfort in on the dilemma of someone other than himself. Rouge probably didn’t expect him to even care which is why she was about to tell him “Nevermind. Good luck.” before leaving. But he stopped her and reassured her that the original Shadow might still be alive. I like that.

You don’t need to shove Gamma’s soul into him to draw moments like that out of him.

I didn't mind how over the top they were taking his love for destruction as, on the surface, it was funny enough. One of my favorite panels in the whole book is when Omega meets the little Fixit robot and asks if it knows how to destroy things and it just responds by saying it can only fix. And the next panel is of them in the same positions but it's completely quiet with Omega just staring at him. Stuff like that is great. But then you get really whacked out nonsense like him falling in weird pseudo love with Blaze and making weird curtsy movements with his body as though he's shy when he asks if it's okay if they burn things together again in the future or something. 

I also didn’t really like the idea that he was outright confirmed to be a part of GUN. The idea that he helps them out when he so desires allures me a bit more.

As a huge fan of Omega, it naturally took me a long time before I was okay with his Archie portrayal. This is one of those cases where the differences made him a little too different for him to completely be the guy I loved in Heroes so much. If there was anything I would have changed about Heroes, is that I would have expanded more on the situation with him and Eggman instead of leaving it to one line of dialogue like they did. There’s something there that could have been beefed up to make a more interesting character study than what I feel Ian went with.

However, I’m in the minority on that.

I actually agree with you. 

I kinda feel the same about what hope was for a while, essentially a maria surrogate. Like I would rather that character, return to being its own thing rather than be another character to serve some...extremely limited sense of being " touching "

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I also didn’t really like the idea that he was outright confirmed to be a part of GUN. The idea that he helps them out when he so desires allures me a bit more.

 

I don't see it as a big deal. I think we can agree that Omega isn't a complicated dude.

From his point of view GUN aren't his "boss". They give him oil and stuff to shoot. That's why he tolerates them around. I don't think he ever said "Yes, sir commander Tower. I obey your orders". He only listens to Shadow and Rouge.

I think their relationship works on the fact that none of the sides goes into details about their "work contract".

[DabigRG]

Yeah, Omega in the games was always kind of an egocentric psycho and that is what led to him breaking the robo-speak to be smartmouthed at times. Heck, his first line is threatening to kill Shadow and Rouge if they distract him too much and then there's his reaction to when either are taken out in a Team Battle.

"Well, that's a load off my back."

Come to think of it, he's another character I feel Forces handled pretty well, now that I've played Episode Shadow.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

I kinda feel the same about what hope was for a while, essentially a maria surrogate. Like I would rather that character, return to being its own thing rather than be another character to serve some...extremely limited sense of being " touching "

To be fair, the Hope and Maria resemblance was just another one of those happy coincidences that Penders took advantage of, this time.

I believe most didn't mind since she did have her own baggage to deal with on top of being a[nother] positive human/overlander and Archie Shadow tended to be more "open" compared to the game version.

Though I'm still not really sure where the mechanic thing came from.

[Shadowlax]

I would rather she had continued dealing with said baggage than dealing with shadow. I like shadow, he's my favorite character, that said he doesn't need anything and he doesn't need surrogates. The post reboot having him deal with... not knowing what he was and to some degree, prejudices is a much more interesting to tell a new shadow story than " well... new maria " 

45 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I don't see it as a big deal. I think we can agree that Omega isn't a complicated dude.

From his point of view GUN aren't his "boss". They give him oil and stuff to shoot. That's why he tolerates them around. I don't think he ever said "Yes, sir commander Tower. I obey your orders". He only listens to Shadow and Rouge.

I think their relationship works on the fact that none of the sides goes into details about their "work contract".

TBH while I think team dark as a concept is dumb and they shouldn't work for gun for mutiple reasons, not only does this make sense works for shadow too. I wouldn't be suprised if rouge is actually the only one who outright works for gun. Shadow is some kind of merc they keep around because they literally can't stop him and omega is " We just point him in a direction " 

[Maxtiis]

5 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It's the total opposite for me.

I thought having him interact with Gamma was silly and the whole thing of putting his soul literally inside of Omega was hammy and weird on a level that felt like it was putting Gamma on a strange pedestal of spiritual importance. It felt like he was being treated as some sort of agent of God or something when in reality, the thing I liked about Gamma's story was that it was just a far off, disconnected circumstance that came about when a robot's sentience granted him empathy the likes of which had yet to be explored within Eggman's robots up to that point. He had a very quiet and satisfactory end that was so far off to the side that not even Amy found out about it.

The thing I loved about Omega was also gutted significantly by this to the point where it took me a while to warm up to him in the Archie comics. The thing that drew me towards him was how incredibly selfish his motivation was and how admirably unsympathetic he was to everything around him. It's very creative and interesting having a character like him in a series like this where his primary motivation is fueled by a desire for revenge. He's a character who was built to be the very strongest in the line of robots he was created from and unlike Gamma whose sentience granted him empathy for the plight of his brothers, Omega’s sentience granted him the exact opposite, to where he’s so immersed with the desire to be the strongest that being sealed off for the sake of guarding something seemingly more valuable to Eggman than himself overloaded the Deadly Sin of Pride meter on his stone-cold metal hull.

Having that as the foundation for him made it all the more incredible to me as a kid when I saw the very last cutscene of Team Dark and watched him actually respond to Rouge’s concern that Shadow might be a robot before walking off. It was the first time in the game where he got a word of comfort in on the dilemma of someone other than himself. Rouge probably didn’t expect him to even care which is why she was about to tell him “Nevermind. Good luck.” before leaving. But he stopped her and reassured her that the original Shadow might still be alive. I like that.

You don’t need to shove Gamma’s soul into him to draw moments like that out of him.

I didn't mind how over the top they were taking his love for destruction as, on the surface, it was funny enough. One of my favorite panels in the whole book is when Omega meets the little Fixit robot and asks if it knows how to destroy things and it just responds by saying it can only fix. And the next panel is of them in the same positions but it's completely quiet with Omega just staring at him. Stuff like that is great. But then you get really whacked out nonsense like him falling in weird pseudo love with Blaze and making weird curtsy movements with his body as though he's shy when he asks if it's okay if they burn things together again in the future or something. 

I also didn’t really like the idea that he was outright confirmed to be a part of GUN. The idea that he helps them out when he so desires allures me a bit more.

As a huge fan of Omega, it naturally took me a long time before I was okay with his Archie portrayal. This is one of those cases where the differences made him a little too different for him to completely be the guy I loved in Heroes so much. If there was anything I would have changed about Heroes, is that I would have expanded more on the situation with him and Eggman instead of leaving it to one line of dialogue like they did. There’s something there that could have been beefed up to make a more interesting character study than what I feel Ian went with.

However, I’m in the minority on that.

Its a been a long time since I read the story, I forgot that's how Gamma got Omega to shift priority. That does sound too silly for my tastes, so I'll consider my point moot now.

[Marco9966]

Will the geography be kept like in Sonic Unleashed? If no, then it'll be like what?

[Dr. Detective]

7 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I don't see it as a big deal. I think we can agree that Omega isn't a complicated dude.

From his point of view GUN aren't his "boss". They give him oil and stuff to shoot. That's why he tolerates them around. I don't think he ever said "Yes, sir commander Tower. I obey your orders". He only listens to Shadow and Rouge.

I think their relationship works on the fact that none of the sides goes into details about their "work contract".

I think it doesn't bother me when it comes to the games, because he never takes orders from G.U.N and he's never shown to have any interaction with the soldiers or commander there. It's mostly just been him taking on requests from Rouge and even then, he doesn't fully listen to her it would seem.

However, it was a lot harder to ignore in the comics. He very much was just a full on agent in the book and there were significant scenes where he did take direct orders from the commander, most notably during the mission he was on during the first Eggman Sonic Universe story arc and one of the flashback scenes in Shadow Fall.

It feels like a bigger deal to me because him being a true renegade who just decides to help out his friends when he so desires just feels a lot cooler. It kind of came off like the book relegated him to G.U.N soldier status just because they didn't know what else to really do with him. That and it'd be a lot easier to just have him be Shadow's second sidekick, like Rouge... which is another can of worms all together. 

[Razule]

8 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

I listened to the bumblekast, Ian confirms that Classic and Modern are separate entities, who share some elements and some are different, starting from Mania when the Phantom Ruby screwed up things... or was it starting with Generations and the Time Eater who created split timelines? I'm still confused...

*Dabs in victory*

[DabigRG]

Really thinking about it, I think an inherent reason why Omega hasn't been given much if any solo spotlight outside of the grandfather clause is because he is really aimless and borderline single-minded.

In a series where Sonic routinely journeys around wherever the wind carries him before Eggman or some other villain stirs up trouble for him to fight, Tails has numerous workshops to tinker in when he's not following Sonic, Knuckles guards his island when he isn't just showing up for the sake of it, Amy stalks Sonic when not in her apartment, Shadow is the archetypal loner/antihero/rival who broods to himself, and Cream has a homelife with an actual parent, Omega has no other hobby(besides collecting magazines :lol:) or pass time beyond his goal to simultaneously prove himself Eggman's most powerful creation and get revenge on Eggman for a slight.

This means that when he isn't assisting Shadow and Rouge when they call on him, he likely spends most of his time destroying whatever Badnik, or base, or what ever other thing he comes across and he is always on the hunt to do so. 

So he would be best suited to a side story or perhaps a shoot em' up/beat em' up type game.

[MetalSkulkBane]

31 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I think it doesn't bother me when it comes to the games, because he never takes orders from G.U.N and he's never shown to have any interaction with the soldiers or commander there. It's mostly just been him taking on requests from Rouge and even then, he doesn't fully listen to her it would seem.

However, it was a lot harder to ignore in the comics. He very much was just a full on agent in the book and there were significant scenes where he did take direct orders from the commander, most notably during the mission he was on during the first Eggman Sonic Universe story arc and one of the flashback scenes in Shadow Fall.

It feels like a bigger deal to me because him being a true renegade who just decides to help out his friends when he so desires just feels a lot cooler. It kind of came off like the book relegated him to G.U.N soldier status just because they didn't know what else to really do with him. That and it'd be a lot easier to just have him be Shadow's second sidekick, like Rouge... which is another can of worms all together. 

"Reminder: ranks are not bulletproof"

This is what Omega said to Commander Tower after getting order he didn't like (SU 61). This is the only time someone from GUN directly gave him order on screen. (I think. Unless you count brefing on the start of the arc. But that wasn't order, that was description of things he's about too shoot.)

I mean, he has to live somewhere, might as well in GUN headquarters. I guess you would prefer if he kinda travelled around the world.

[NikoS]

Soo. this is a thing now, for those who have Facebook and would like to join:

Apparently new art, info and sneak-peaks will be shared there.

[Almar]

7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I would rather she had continued dealing with said baggage than dealing with shadow. I like shadow, he's my favorite character, that said he doesn't need anything and he doesn't need surrogates. The post reboot having him deal with... not knowing what he was and to some degree, prejudices is a much more interesting to tell a new shadow story than " well... new maria " 

TBH while I think team dark as a concept is dumb and they shouldn't work for gun for mutiple reasons, not only does this make sense works for shadow too. I wouldn't be suprised if rouge is actually the only one who outright works for gun. Shadow is some kind of merc they keep around because they literally can't stop him and omega is " We just point him in a direction " 

Within context of just Adventure 2 I'm sure Rouge isn't a member of GUN so much as a third party hired to research Eggman. Later games shifted this to her being a full-blown member.

But I'm sure GUN isn't in the canon anymore anyway. We can't have non-Eggman humans don't you know?

[Marco9966]

4 minutes ago, Almar said:

Within context of just Adventure 2 I'm sure Rouge isn't a member of GUN so much as a third party hired to research Eggman. Later games shifted this to her being a full-blown member.

But I'm sure GUN isn't in the canon anymore anyway. We can't have non-Eggman humans don't you know?

How can they make GUN non-canon when we have a lore as important as Shadow's history with Maria, GUN, who are humans.

[Almar]

Same way they can have Sonic live on another planet away from humanity even though the games after the Genesis until 06 have elements in their plots and backstories that depend on humans and anthros being on the same world: By doing what Sonic Team does.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Almar said:

Within context of just Adventure 2 I'm sure Rouge isn't a member of GUN so much as a third party hired to research Eggman. Later games shifted this to her being a full-blown member.

 

Yeah, she was explicitly gathering information on the Shadow Project in exchange for jewels, while simultaneous playing along with Eggman and trying to get her hands on all of the Master Emerald pieces.

Or, in the case of Sonic X and Archie, she also got caught by them and is working off her debt to society in addition. Which I love, btw.

1 hour ago, Almar said:

 

But I'm sure GUN isn't in the canon anymore anyway. We can't have non-Eggman humans don't you know?

Sure they are--they just live in the other world.

 

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Almar said:

But I'm sure GUN isn't in the canon anymore anyway. We can't have non-Eggman humans don't you know?

There is no canon. Everything is canon, and nothing is. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they're not there. Besides.. two worlds.

[Razule]

12 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

 

Edit: I listened to the bumblekast, Ian confirms that Classic and Modern are separate entities, who share some elements and some are different, starting from Mania when the Phantom Ruby screwed up things... or was it starting with Generations and the Time Eater who created split timelines? I'm still confused...

The newest BumbleKast?