Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[SonicComicFanboy]

Personally I've found for the majority of the 21st Century it has been Sonic's SEGAness that has really held the franchise back.  If others can do a better job SEGA/Sonic Team need to be the bigger men & let them.  If IDW can do a good a job with the granfathered cartoon & old game characters as they can the main & new ones I say let em! 

[Shiny Gems]

8 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Could you elaborate on what "SatAMness" means in this context? Otherwise, it just sounds like you just have a grudge against the characters because they were in SatAM.

Not saying you do, just that it's what it sounds like without more info.

I meant having SatAm elements, like Eggman having conquered the world. I just want something more original with IDW comics that is different from what Archie was, that is all.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Something tells me that those six months were spent on finding a new publisher and once the deal's done, break out the bad news to the fans. 

Looking at this statement though, it looks like the team could be a mix of old and new: they could bring back some of those who did Archie Sonic, while bringing in some newcomers. It would be cool if they brought back the old team together again, but if they're picking and choosing, I'd say bring back Flynn, Heese, Skelly, ABT?

I'm actually conflicted on whether they should bring the FF back. If the comic is going on a new direction, then that could mean we could see the extended cast more often. Sure Archie Sonic Universe focused on them, but I'm not sure whether this series is going to do the same...

On the other hand, the FF's Post Genesis were pretty nice, (as were the Egg bosses). Some of them had neat designs, interesting backstories, and personality. (Nicole is my favorite character from the FF group. Neat design, backstory and the concept of an AI trying to help out her friends and feel emotions with them is just hnnng. Her friendship with Sally was really nicely written).

Then again, as much as I liked their Post Genesis selves back in the Archie series, I doubt they would return to this comic. Sega's previous statement stated that they're going for a different direction, and they are probably going for a bit tighter control when the comic starts, maybe they are probably going to do what they can to avoid any other... shenanigans.

It would be cool to see them again and continue the story post Unleashed, but if they don't show up in the new comic, It'll be sad to see them go, but I suppose it's for the best.

For now, I'm curious to see how this will work.

 

[PC the Hedgehog]

I'm wondering if perhaps Sega wanting to take the Sonic comics in a "different direction" simply means having a new publisher as opposed to changing the actual content of the book.

[SonicComicFanboy]

5 minutes ago, PC the Hedgehog said:

I'm wondering if perhaps Sega wanting to take the Sonic comics in a "different direction" simply means having a new publisher as opposed to changing the actual content of the book.

 At the very least.  No doubt they were tired of dealing with Archie/Penders/Fulop and wanted a publisher that had a better track record for liscensed books.

 

 I am sadly doubtful at this point we will pick-up where Archie left off as i'm sure IDW wants a shiny new #1 to put in shops but am still hopeful they can convince SEGA to let the grandfathered chars like The Freedom Fighters, Mighty, Ray, Nack , etc to stay around in some capacity.

[Sean]

I can't get excited for this until I know for certain that the freedom fighters are returning. If this means they're gone for good then reading the new comics is going to leave me feeling pretty hollow, no matter how good they are or who else on the creative team is on board. The Archie comics were how I got into Sonic in the first place, so it'll forever feel like something important is missing to me.

[Speedi]

29 minutes ago, Sean said:

I can't get excited for this until I know for certain that the freedom fighters are returning. If this means they're gone for good then reading the new comics is going to leave me feeling pretty hollow, no matter how good they are or who else on the creative team is on board. The Archie comics were how I got into Sonic in the first place, so it'll forever feel like something important is missing to me.

I'm sure IDW understands just how important and special those characters are to the people who have been reading the series since it's cancellation. If the series is a full on reboot they probably won't be main characters anymore (which I personally prefer), but at the very least they might be side characters who show up every once in a while. If the Archie staff can fight for them, I'm sure IDW can too.

[SonicComicFanboy]

28 minutes ago, Sean said:

I can't get excited for this until I know for certain that the freedom fighters are returning. If this means they're gone for good then reading the new comics is going to leave me feeling pretty hollow, no matter how good they are or who else on the creative team is on board. The Archie comics were how I got into Sonic in the first place, so it'll forever feel like something important is missing to me.

  Same here.  Sonic has pretty much been a multimedia character since his inception.  plenty of people got into the franchise because of the various cartoons & comics as they did the games.

8 minutes ago, Speedi said:

I'm sure IDW understands just how important and special those characters are to the people who have been reading the series since it's cancellation. If the series is a full on reboot hey probably won't be main characters anymore, (which I personally prefer) but at the very least they might be side characters who show up every once in a while. If the Archie staff can fight for them, I'm sure IDW can too.

  Agreed.  IDW isn't just the type of publisher to say "Screw the fans" (they aren't Marvel after all ) as previously stated if their Ghostbusters/Star Trek/TMNT/etc books are anything to go by they will try to find a nice medium between respecting fans of the past while still trying to create their own unique world for the characters.  I mean this is the company that put Q & The Borg from Star Trek:TNG in  the comics for the current movie continuity so I wouldn't rule anything out.

 

 With any luck the book will be similar to the post SGW Archie books. Something a lot closer to the games as in it still uses the Zones/Continents from set games and focuses more on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy & Robotnik but still has the Freedom Fighters & old game characters pop-up from time to time or in back-up strips as needed.

 

 Hopefully we will have solicits for the first issue sometime between October-December as comic books are solicited about 3 months out so if the book starts between January-March we should know by this Fall/Holiday season!

[Ryannumber1gamer]

 Just shut up Ken...

[Balding Spider]

No, let him keep talking. Give's him more rope to hang himself with.

[SonicComicFanboy]

 Mr. Penders reminds me a lot of the man that thought anyone who used the word cross in a video game title should have to pay him royalties.   

If memory serves it did'nt turn out well for him.

[Speedi]

Does he seriously think that he had the power to stop Archie from making new characters? The lawsuit was only for the characters made by him, what Archie does itself is fair game. How delusional can you get?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

It's more delusional than it sounds. He's trying to say even the old Archie comics had no right to create characters and supposedly not tell anyone about it...despite the fact he was the king of making needlessly unneeded and underused characters and got away with it for the better part of a decade. But the bigger part is he's trying to imply that the reason people bought the comics was for those characters he created.

[Osmium]

4 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

It's more delusional than it sounds. He's trying to say even the old Archie comics had no right to create characters and supposedly not tell anyone about it...despite the fact he was the king of making needlessly unneeded and underused characters and got away with it for the better part of a decade. But the bigger part is he's trying to imply that the reason people bought the comics was for those characters he created.

I really want to know if he legit believes this or is doing this just as some sort of show and hopes some idiots will look at it and not ask too many questions 

[antyep]

2 minutes ago, ShroomZed said:

I really want to know if he legit believes this or is doing this just as some sort of show and hopes some idiots will look at it and not ask too many questions 

Both

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 hour ago, CrystalStorm51 said:

I meant having SatAm elements, like Eggman having conquered the world. I just want something more original with IDW comics that is different from what Archie was, that is all.

They really dialed that back, even pre-reboot. If I remember correctly, especially post-reboot, Eggman had different Egg Army chapters spread out around the world, and there were often groups who were fighting back, with some interesting results sprinkled in among them -- the Desert Raiders and Midesta Egg Army being a particularly fascinating example of bucking the norm.

[Blue Blood]

I was never a fan of the Archie comics. For years they were absolute tosh - the art was often horrible and the stories were like terrible soap operas starting the Freedom Fighters in which also Sonic joined in sometimes. And by the time they actually got good (i.e Ian Flynn coming on board, reboot happening), they'd been going on for so long and had developed such a universe of their own that was so hugely separated from the SEGA series that it was daunting to consider getting in to them. So with that in mind, I personally don't want this to end up being a continuation of Archie series. I want them to start afresh.  Bring on the writers and artists who were working on the comic up until the end, because they were doing a grand job. But the Archie comics really picked up a lot of baggage, both in the lore and the real world thanks to the Penders case, that I want to forget that anything has already happened. And I would love to be able to get in to this series from the start without worrying about 25-odd years of almost 300 issues to get to grips with. 

Of course, I understand that the Archie comics came to the most unceremonious of ends and that the series meant a lot to a lot of people. Scrapping the Freedom Fighters and the rest of the non-game cast is on my wish-list, but only in as much as I want a line to be drawn under that entire universe. They can keep the characters and continue to create new ones so long as everything else is separate. I do feel for everyone who was an Archie fan though and hardly think that this "fuck you, it's cancelled" outcome is fair. There needs to be some closure of IDW and SEGA choose to start from square one.

The writing was on the wall about this cancellation for a long time. It's a shame it happened. Archie fucked up badly, SEGA probably did some shit too. Here's to turning a new page!

[Zulon Eredas]

You want bad art, look at some issues of fleetway.

[Sean]

It's not IDW I'm worried about. It's Sega. They could mandate IDW use only the (modern) game characters for all we know at this point, considering their haphazard handling of the franchise and a rumored desire for stricter control over Sonic's portrayal in other mediums.

[Osmium]

2 minutes ago, Zulon Eredas said:

You want bad art, look at some issues of fleetway.

Yeah the early ones that p much no one pays attention to. Richard Elson and Nigel Dobyn had flaws but in general they were excellent artists, better than pretty much anything Archie had at the time.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Sean said:

It's not IDW I'm worried about. It's Sega. They could mandate IDW use only the (modern) game characters for all we know at this point, considering their haphazard handling of the franchise and a rumored desire for stricter control over alternate mediums.

This is honestly my main worry. People are excited for this because they think it'll take the game cast and expand them out and their adventures and such...when SEGA could just as easily flip them the middle finger, mandate IDW to hell, and give us the exact same lackluster shit we've received in the games for years, the same shit the wide majority here criticises for being so lackluster. 

And keep in mind, if Ian isn't back to write the comic, there will be no one fighting to include the expanded cast this time around, which is the exact reason why the FF and perhaps others survived SEGA's mandates for New252.

[SonicComicFanboy]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

This is honestly my main worry. People are excited for this because they think it'll take the game cast and expand them out and their adventures and such...when SEGA could just as easily flip them the middle finger, mandate IDW to hell, and give us the exact same lackluster shit we've received in the games for years, the same shit the wide majority here criticises for being so lackluster. 

And keep in mind, if Ian isn't back to write the comic, there will be no one fighting to include the expanded cast this time around, which is the exact reason why the FF and perhaps others survived SEGA's mandates for New252.

 We can't say there's no one.  As i've mentioned multiple times IDW likes having deep wells to draw from for properties like this.  They will at the very least talk to SEGA about using the more popular extended cast characters the company has the rights to.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, SonicComicFanboy said:

 We can't say there's no one.  As i've mentioned multiple times IDW likes having deep wells to draw from for properties like this.  They will at the very least talk to SEGA about using the more popular extended cast characters the company has the rights to.

And we've already established that if SEGA plays hardball enough, IDW will easily submit, seeing as they've already done so for Disney comics. Once again, the only reason SEGA even agreed to the other characters for Archie was because Ian fought so hard for them. IDW will do anything to get the license, it'd likely be up to the actual crew to debate getting characters.

[Sean]

No matter how good IDW's repertoire is, at this current point and lack of knowledge of the new comic, I still don't trust Sega.

I mean, it's fucking Sega. They seriously cannot handle the franchise (or most of their other ones) worth shit.

[Meta77]

If not for Sega we wouldn't have a comic. Lord some people act as if Sega ruins everything Sega didn't fuck up the comic with legal issues writers did. I mean if you wanted Sega could have easily said no more comic but no they are giving it another go.

If anything I'm trying hard to find reason how some think this means they will continue the Archie story. Sorry to say I'm pretty sure those days are gone