Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Marco9966]

4 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

The only negative I have about it is the continuation directly off Forces.

That said, I look forward to the world building and characters getting to be more involed than the games.

For me I would have no problem if only there was no Classic Sonic in it, because it shows Sega's lore disrespect.

[Red Hot Jack]

Classic Sonic will probably get his own miniseries, like he did with Mega Drive, a separate universe and a separate comic, he will talk, most likely, and characters who may show up in that comic are probably the Hard Boiled Heavies and the Hooligans, which I wonder if they can be used in the main comics too, I hope so. I hope in both universes. I mean, there will definitely be some Classic miniseries, because look at how popular Mega Drive was, and how well it sold. Classic sells, when done right.

[Marco9966]

4 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Classic Sonic will probably get his own miniseries, like he did with Mega Drive, a separate universe and a separate comic, he will talk, most likely, and characters who may show up in that comic are probably the Hard Boiled Heavies and the Hooligans, which I wonder if they can be used in the main comics too, I hope so. I hope in both universes. I mean, there will definitely be some Classic miniseries, because look at how popular Mega Drive was, and how well it sold. Classic sells, when done right.

I am not against a classic series, but PLEASE don't make Classic and Modern Sonic teammates! It's so forced and useless! And Sonic Forces is the proof! (Generation doesn't count because it was supposed to be a one-time thing).

[VelaNova]

I'm looking forward to these IDW comics! I was never able to read Archie, as there were way too many issues. But with this fresh new start I know I'll be able to read it from the beginning, which excites me. Also, Tangle looks cute, I'm interested in what her personality is like.

[Meta77]

I don't mind it leading from forces. If anything what I hope is Sega of Japan gets a clue and works more with others now. Though the comic issepeeate they could use chapters or characters in side stories if ian writes.  cause ST sure can't

[MetalSkulkBane]

I have a theory (THEORY, not 100% adamant opinion) what's Shadow's problem: he's too big.

He's got more complex backstory than Sonic (who has none), more powers, calls himself "Ultimate Life Form". He's a sorta guy who needs big story from definition.

Instead, he got to get punched by Enerjack. And Scourge and Adam andd Super Scourge. Then he got SU which few small stories, with small threats (and he loses a lot, which really bums him out). Then he has a comedy brawl in Treasure Team Tango. Finally Worlds Collide, where he's not allowed to do anything impressive (unless you count saving dr Light).

I'm not saying that any of those stories is bad on it's own, but if you look at from wider perspective you'll say "man, he never got to beat Dark Enerjack or Finitevus or stuff like that"

He had it slightly better in Reboot, but most of his apperance he spends fighting good guys (strange pattern) rather doing something meaningfulll. His greatest victory ("Shadow Fall" is copy of Shadow the Game on smaller scale and he didn't got to score win over his true enemy, Eclipse (not "big-fair-epic-no'buts'-sort" of victory anyway). In comparison Blaze melted her enemy and sunk Death Egg, Silver had godzilla fight, while Knuckles gets Championship, fight with Protoman and many smaller victories.

Compare it to Sonic X season 3, where he gets to beat giant Metarexes, goes Super with Sonic in the finale and that one time he went after Cosmo, he smashed through all defenses like freaking Terminator (I still like Knuckles VS Shadow fight there more than one from Archie). Shadow is a character that feels most comfortable when he gets to do something big. But aftter 2001-2006 period, his glory days are sorta over. It's not that visible in spin off games, while Black Knight, Generations and even Boom just made him bad guy again (which sooorta works, I guess, that's whole other can of worms). Forces is defnitely a strangle example. He's evil... but no boss fight. He has his own DLC... which ends abruptly and he never interact with Infinite in main game... but he's playable. So I guess it makes it ok?

I think (and hope) I made my point. Shadow can't live from cameos and small roles like Big or Chaotix, he comes out kinda boring in those. He needs to go on a epic quest to save the world... except that's Sonic job and Shadow isn't allowed to co-share this status, not anymore. This is why I kinda like idea of him working for GUN. Image of him doing  "Black Ops" stuff behind curtains means he potentially saves the world as much as Sonic, but quiter without fanfare. It fits him.

If you dissagree, I'm not going to defend my position (I'm sure I made few Chaotix fans squint their eyes). Like I said, this is just a theory that was stuck in my head for a while.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I have a theory (THEORY, not 100% adamant opinion) what's Shadow's problem: he's too big.

He's got more complex backstory than Sonic (who has none), more powers, calls himself "Ultimate Life Form". He's a sorta guy who needs big story from definition.

Instead, he got to get punched by Enerjack. And Scourge and Adam andd Super Scourge. Then he got SU which few small stories, with small threats (and he loses a lot, which really bums him out). Then he has a comedy brawl in Treasure Team Tango. Finally Worlds Collide, where he's not allowed to do anything impressive (unless you count saving dr Light).

I'm not saying that any of those stories is bad on it's own, but if you look at from wider perspective you'll say "man, he never got to beat Dark Enerjack or Finitevus or stuff like that"

He had it slightly better in Reboot, but most of his apperance he spends fighting good guys (strange pattern) rather doing something meaningfulll. His greatest victory ("Shadow Fall" is copy of Shadow the Game on smaller scale and he didn't got to score win over his true enemy, Eclipse (not "big-fair-epic-no'buts'-sort" of victory anyway). In comparison Blaze melted her enemy and sunk Death Egg, Silver had godzilla fight, while Knuckles gets Championship, fight with Protoman and many smaller victories.

Compare it to Sonic X season 3, where he gets to beat giant Metarexes, goes Super with Sonic in the finale and that one time he went after Cosmo, he smashed through all defenses like freaking Terminator (I still like Knuckles VS Shadow fight there more than one from Archie). Shadow is a character that feels most comfortable when he gets to do something big. But aftter 2001-2006 period, his glory days are sorta over. It's not that visible in spin off games, while Black Knight, Generations and even Boom just made him bad guy again (which sooorta works, I guess, that's whole other can of worms). Forces is defnitely a strangle example. He's evil... but no boss fight. He has his own DLC... which ends abruptly and he never interact with Infinite in main game... but he's playable. So I guess it makes it ok?

I think (and hope) I made my point. Shadow can't live from cameos and small roles like Big or Chaotix, he comes out kinda boring in those. He needs to go on a epic quest to save the world... except that's Sonic job and Shadow isn't allowed to co-share this status, not anymore. This is why I kinda like idea of him working for GUN. Image of him doing  "Black Ops" stuff behind curtains means he potentially saves the world as much as Sonic, but quiter without fanfare. It fits him.

If you dissagree, I'm not going to defend my position (I'm sure I made few Chaotix fans squint their eyes). Like I said, this is just a theory that was stuck in my head for a while.

Is that really a theory though?

[MetalSkulkBane]

13 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Is that really a theory though?

... please elaborate. I'm not sure what you mean.

[DabigRG]

22 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I'm not saying that any of those stories is bad on it's own, but if you look at from wider perspective you'll say "man, he never got to beat Dark Enerjack or Finitevus or stuff like that"

 

Again, that's in part because there was the big, monstrous villain for him to take on in his occasional appearances. Black Doom was kept busy fighting the Xorda due to the similar scale involved, Mephiles was apparently among the restricted or outright banned from being introduced, and Dr. Nega was relegated an offscreen subplot with the Zone Cops due to mandates. And Eggman, Naugus, Mogul, Scourge and Finitevus were relegated to Sonic(and Knuckles in the latter's case), were outside GUN's jurisdiction most of the time, and weren't really up to go against Shadow in a "fitting/satisfactory" manner.

22 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

He had it slightly better in Reboot, but most of his apperance he spends fighting good guys (strange pattern) rather doing something meaningfulll. His greatest victory ("Shadow Fall" is copy of Shadow the Game on smaller scale and he didn't got to score win over his true enemy, Eclipse (not "big-fair-epic-no'buts'-sort" of victory anyway). In comparison Blaze melted her enemy and sunk Death Egg, Silver had godzilla fight, while Knuckles gets Championship, fight with Protoman and many smaller victories.

 

Well, he did char Black Death to a crisp and had a hand of arresting Naugus. 

22 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

But aftter 2001-2006 period, his glory days are sorta over. It's not that visible in spin off games, while Black Knight, Generations and even Boom just made him bad guy again (which sooorta works, I guess, that's whole other can of worms).

Lancelot technically wasn't a bad guy in Black Knight and got to help save the day in the end.

Meanwhile, Generations is apparently intended to be the Shadow of that timeline.

22 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Shadow can't live from cameos and small roles like Big or Chaotix, he comes out kinda boring in those. He needs to go on a epic quest to save the world... except that's Sonic job and Shadow isn't allowed to co-share this status, not anymore. This is why I kinda like idea of him working for GUN. Image of him doing  "Black Ops" stuff behind curtains means he potentially saves the world as much as Sonic, but quiter without fanfare. It fits him.

 

Agreed.

6 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

... please elaborate. I'm not sure what you mean.

I mean that it should be common sense given the direction most other games goes in, not to mention the comics also being to jammed with recurring characters of various powersets and just enough limited vileness for Shadow to not really be the major force in the early 2000s games.

[BlueSky]

15 hours ago, KoDaiko said:

I heard that commotion, whether positive or negative, can boost sales. Even if the ones angry won’t buy, the fuss could reach other people (unaware of the comic, those initially not interested, buying for the sake of trolling, etc.) and have a net increase. The opposite can happen too, of course.

Also there is a risk in giving answers, people can twist it and use it against them.

“If they can give us a straight answer that it’s (not) Sally, why bother teasing us? Bad Marketing!”
“They said the FF would be ‘back’, but it’s been 2 years! IDW lied to us!”
“They said they ‘probably’ won’t have the FF anymore, but (due to change of plans) they’re gonna have them. Untrustworthy.”
“They said they can’t bring the FF back. But they did [something similar but not unique/exclusive to FF]! That means the new characters are probably sneaky replacement/rip-off.”

I’m extremely exaggerating here, but basically if they are ambiguous people can’t quote them as evidence they are bad.

That brings one Finnish saying to my mind; it means literally "swamp there, slack here" or something, though it's like a really sloppy slack really, it just doesn't translate too well.

But it basically means whatever you do you won't get anything good out of it.

Well, I suppose I'm on the minority then, since I could settle for waiting them even without a precise estimation, but well, Internet's basically one big swamp.

Has anybody commented already how handy Tangle's tail is prolly going to become by the way?

[Kuzu]

Shadow's the type of character I feel that has to be used differently from others. Unlike virtually every other supporting character, he's not really buddy-buddy with Sonic, and mostly off having his own adventures. So when he does show up, it's usually for a specific reason. And one that doesn't always align with the rest of the heroes.

Add to the fact that he's been overexposed in the past, and its' easy to see why he doesn't show up often. He has a habit of basically overshadowing (No pun intended) other characters just by virtue of being a dark variant of the main character, which always tend to stand out in fictional stories. He can be written with a bit more nuance and restraint, but then you downplay all of the traits that make him different from the rest of the cast.

So yea, I hope Shadow doesn't show up too often because it would dull his appearances and basically give none of the other cast room to breathe. That way when he does show up, it actually feels important. 

 

I actually didn't mind how he was used in the comics, but then it goes back to the overshadowing issue as apart of Team Dark, Rouge and Omega barely got anything to do on their own lol.

[Marco9966]

What kind of stories Shadow should have? It should be something related to his past, and Eclipse was perfect for it. But now Eclipse will not reappear.

So what will they do for Shadow?

[Wraith]

I'd like more stories about Rouge with Shadow as a tag along. 

To actually answer the question,  put Shadow in situations that actually show what kind of hero he is instead of always going back to the "his past" well for ideas. The comics were actually decent about this.

[Meta77]

People love shadow but I agree not having him in the spotlight amps up the times he does show up. The shriek of marines VA seeing shadow in forces still tickles me

[DabigRG]

17 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

What kind of stories Shadow should have? It should be something related to his past, and Eclipse was perfect for it. But now Eclipse will not reappear.

So what will they do for Shadow?

Yeah, Eclipse was definitely a step in the right direction, even if he wasn't quite as awesome as Finitevus or Thrash was for Archie!Knuckles. At least for most of his two appearances, anyway. Hopefully, Eclipse(and the Dark Arms) can eventually be integrated into IDW due to his primarily SEGA-centric origins.

In regards to what they can actually do with Shadow, well, I'm honestly struggling to think of that. Like we said, all of Shadow's major appearances involved a villain with a higher than usual level of threat, effectiveness, and vileness to justify Shadow going up against them. That's pretty hard to manage in an extensive manner without overlapping with everything else most of the time. And digging into his past for material runs the risk of over indulging in Professor Gerald's Long Los Investigaion #284898-B. 

I honestly have no idea. Maybe [current] Shadow fans can have an easier time thinking of things to do with him?

 

 

[Kuzu]

Yea, there are so many ways you can use him besides drudging up his past for the upteenth time. If he's supposed to be a "Dark Sonic", actually show him being a "Dark Sonic". 

[DabigRG]

Just now, Meta77 said:

People love shadow but I agree not having him in the spotlight amps up the times he does show up. The shriek of marines VA seeing shadow in forces still tickles me

Marine has a VA? 

[Meta77]

5 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Marine has a VA? 

Well someone strikes at a Japanese show I think it was her VA. She saw shadow and squilled his name

[BlueSky]

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I have a theory (THEORY, not 100% adamant opinion) what's Shadow's problem: he's too big.

You know what? That made me remember the Sonic Paradox's "faker" joke all too well right at the second I read "he's too big".

That one where Sonic makes him eat all the subtitles.

It was a fun thing to remember. Sorry, I just found it too funny to not to say out loud.

[Razule]

11 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Yea, there are so many ways you can use him besides drudging up his past for the upteenth time. If he's supposed to be a "Dark Sonic", actually show him being a "Dark Sonic". 

But, what makes a Dark Sonic? Doing the same things Sonic would do, but edgier? Fighting his own even darker Dr. Eggman? Some kind of... Eggman "NEGA" if you will? Maybe Eggman's long lost cousin? Retooling Dr. Warpnik from AoStH? Make him Maria's brother and... oh wait, his past

5 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Well someone strikes at a Japanese show I think it was her VA. She saw shadow and squilled his name

That was Sticks

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Razule said:

But, what makes a Dark Sonic? Doing the same things Sonic would do, but edgier? Fighting his own even darker Dr. Eggman? Some kind of... Eggman "NEGA" if you will?

I really did like that one line from the first Rivals, even if it was pretty harsh when you think about it.

"There's no way I'd lose to someone who blames the past for their failures."

1 minute ago, Razule said:

 

That was Sticks

Ah okay, that makes more sense.

Still, I kinda wish they'd bring Marine(and the Coconut Crew) back.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Razule said:

But, what makes a Dark Sonic? Doing the same things Sonic would do, but edgier? Fighting his own even darker Dr. Eggman? Some kind of... Eggman "NEGA" if you will?

Well going strictly by their characters, they both possess a similar headstrong, and arrogant personality. But Shadow tends to be a bit more...violent about it. There's also their approaches to being a hero like Josh said. Sonic treats it like a hobby, Shadow treats it like a job. So just run with that, show how their characters are similar yet different and how that affects their choices and outcomes.

One arc I liked in the comics is when he tries to apprehend the Master Emerald to keep it out of Eclipse` hands, since ya know, he can buff himself with it. Now yea, it's a pretty obvious excuse just to have him and Knuckles fight, but I do like how it illustrates that Shadow is willing to step on other people's toes if he feel he's doing the right thing.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Eclipse was a good idea. But "Shadow Fall" wasn't about Eclipse (it just set him up for later). Shadow's arc in this story was questioning the idea of genociding aliens that created him. A kinda moot point, considering hos monstrous they are. And the whole mind control was kinda eh. (plus like I said, most of this story felt like a mini repeat of Shadow the Game). "Total Eclipse" was a big setup for a fight with Knuckles. Really cool setup, but with disappointing resolution (Rouge calls them to pack it in, they stop). And in "Shattered" he just sided character.

For new story.. well there are very few loose ends with Forces, but easiest would be sending him to look for Infinite. With their connection, it makes perfect sense.
Alternatively, I imagine that with Eggman gone, some warlords could 'restore order' in different parts of the world and Shadow could be sent take them down. Put the right atmosphere (think Jack the Rabbit and Sand Blasters. Or "Jak and Daxter" franchise) and you have a perfect ob for Shadow.

The real question is if he can even get that. Remember, we don't have Sonic Universe. So we either deal in team-ups with Sonic or back-ups.

[DabigRG]

2 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

 And in "Shattered" he just sided character.

 

Honestly, Team Dark generally didn't need to be in Shattered, which was set up as a Knuckles and Amy teamup arc.

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 minute ago, DabigRG said:

Honestly, Team Dark generally didn't need to be in Shattered, which was set up as a Knuckles and Amy teamup arc.

Raising sales plus filling pages. Without them, this would be 2 issues tops... and probably better story.