Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Kellodrawsalot]

2 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Personally I still say I'll take "Boring Adventures" over shitty love triangles, Overpowerd God Knuckles, Boring fucking Echidna's and Politics. This is why I preferred the Post-Reboot stuff and why I prefer IDW it's simple. It's fun there's a decent flow and it's not up it's own ass trying to prove it's more mature than the games.

This is what I was wanting just Sonic and his friends smashing robots and stopping the newest evil scheme with some fun character dynamics. But I've made it clear before I really don't xcare about the deep lore or want to Sonic's character assassinated by having him bawl like a baby because Eggman beat him because that's not Sonic. Sonic is a high adventure thrill ride and IMHO the book is delivering on that. It's not the deepest thing but it's Sonic for crying out loud.

Thank you, people can say whatever they want about it's being its own thing but , it doesn't a good thing. It was mocked and called Furry-Fanfiction drama for a reason. Just because it was different doesnt mean its good. a COMIC having consistent errors in art, badly thined plotpoints, characters acting out of character. character creator favoritism balant obvious in the writing,  stealing from other sourches to make a '' lore'' in Sonic (The Knuckles comic book stole elements from Star Wars and Star Trek in visual and story designs. ) a comic that relied heavily on dialog and didnt show-and-tell, cringy written romance and often inconsistent art-quality doesn't mean its good. Even if you can criticize IDW-Sonic for being boring (trough I disagree,) it still holds up well in the art and character department. The comic shows us things that happen with visual cues which is what a comic is supposed to do. Its doing its work correctly and better in that regard then its predecessor. 

 

The comic is ofcourse a bit more like the games then pre-archie because the comic was always supposed to be advertising the game. Lol. There is a reason why the majority of people who grew up on the Sonic games and/or Sonic X during the 2000-era, didn't like the Archie comic.

[Kuzu]

I love how people are automatically assuming that because we have legit criticisms about the series, it just means "we want more furry drama".

 

Forget the fact that people have explained what their problems are in clear detail and in respectful manner. Clearly we just want more furry drama...

 

[DabigRG]

22 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

It's one thing after another after another, and it shows because it's going in a formula now as well. The locales change, but it keeps remaining the same thing for a lot of the issues, Sonic and Resistance teammate investigates situation, they beat up robots, or bad guy of the week, bad guy of the week under-estimates them, Sonic cracks wise about being the fastest thing alive, reference to the next big arc, repeat. There's no memorable characters or areas in this world, bar Tangle and Whisper, and it isn't helped that both of them are associated with random villages instead of actual memorable areas of the world, like Lupe was in Archie Sonic for example.

To be fair to Whisper, she's actually got some stuff going on for later appearances and isn't really attached to any one place. There's more of a mystery and drama centering around her, similar to Dr. Starline.

You're pretty right with Tangle, though.

1 minute ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I love how people are automatically assuming that because we have legit criticisms about the series, it just means "we want more furry drama".

 

Forget the fact that people have explained what their problems are in clear detail and in respectful manner. Clearly we just want more furry drama...

 

Eh, can't say it hasn't happened before.

[Kellodrawsalot]

9 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I love how people are automatically assuming that because we have legit criticisms about the series, it just means "we want more furry drama".

 

Forget the fact that people have explained what their problems are in clear detail and in respectful manner. Clearly we just want more furry drama...

 

Obvious my comment isn't directed at EVERYONE who has legit criticism at the comic so please dont put words into people's mouth.

My  comment was directed at everyone who tries to claim Archie-Sonic was better on the grounds that it ''it was different'' or '' had its own indenty''? being unique and doing things different doesn't mean its automatically good , you could argue the last-run or post-reboot maybe but the older comics had tons of issues including two writers who addmited would outright ignore each others writing and re-conning each others work out of spite, and that''s just one of the tiny examples of the older comics flaws.*

 

I am talking about Ken Penders and Karl Boilers. Not like it was a big secret that they had poor teamwork when the comic was running with the two of them as leads.

[Sega DogTagz]

Some part of me want to walk in here and start harping about how this tedium is the inevitable outcome of a comic more reigned into the games-verse.... but I understand that's only a part of the problem here.

... that and the fact I'd probably be brick'd to death too.

 

I'm fine with where the comics are at right now. I don't think the rouge's gallery is large enough just yet to really push the interconnected narratives that Flynn excelled at toward the end of his Archie days. There he had Eggy, Snivley, the Egg Bosses and even regional dictators like Regina and Naugus to bounce off of. 20 odd characters that shifted the balance of power around gave actions and reactions to everything that happens. We don't have that in IDW yet. We've got Starline and the Skunk duo...

I think the best thing the comics can do in year two, is start to roll in additional threats. They don't have to be Eggman tier threats (although Metal Sonic was a good start before he fell back in line) but I would like to see some additional antagonists with their own plot points added into the mix. It doesn't have to be new characters either. The Zeti are sitting on the bench. Nega is still stuck in limbo somewhere. Capt'n Whisker and Johnny are up and about. Somebody give me an Infinite? Shoot, creative writing can get around that roadblock. Have some dastardly pit the Sol dimension against the Chaos dimension and Blaze turns into a reluctant frenemy for a bit. Give Shadow another hard-on for the master emerald an he gets to be a bad guy again. G-Mel can get hacked, GUN could get some spotty intel forcing them to burn Team Dark there is a ton of stuff to play with here.

We just need more complicated and dynamic interconnections.

[Kellodrawsalot]

That's one thing I can very much agree about, the lack of other vilians , I love Starline and Metal Sonic but there at the moment are '' working for Eggman only''  territory. (Rough and Tumble too)

It really sucks that Post-Archie reboot Egg-bosses, Infinte and other game villains  are all off-limit by mandates. I think Infinte had a lot of potential to be a great boss in the IDW Comic books (heck he isn't even a Hedgehog! yay)

Here is hoping for the creation of more grey / better written villains in the future and we already have an implied-departure with Starline's view on his senpai Eggman having decreased by the lattest issue.

[Red Hot Jack]

I dunno, I'm loving the villains so far except Tumble, who has got nothing really, even Rough has the tail thing but it's not much, they just fill the role left by the Hooligans. I loved Neo Metal Sonic a lot more than in Heroes, and I'm loving Eggman and Starline, obviously everyone has a different thing that they want from the series, but I'd rather develop the characters we have and flesh them out, in the case of Rough, Tumble and Starline it's possible because they are comic exclusive, than introducing filler villains.

Same with the filler issues, 12 was already the big aftermath filler that people liked, 14 was yet another filler issue, we need more plot and interesting narratives, new things to break the formula. We don't need the story to go slower, just more in depth, I think.

Tangle and Whisper are gonna get fleshed out too, hopefully. I'm rather content with the pace of the arcs so far, as I said and I'll say it again, 1 year with 12 issues is perfect so we don't feel trapped with in the arcs. But some things last longer obviously, as Ian has already been doing.

[MetalSkulkBane]

2 hours ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

I am talking about Ken Penders and Karl Boilers. Not like it was a big secret that they had poor teamwork when the comic was running with the two of them as leads.

Well, saying that is kinda waste of space.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does anybody, ANYBODY thought that Archie Sonic was way better before Flynn took over?

[StaticMania]

I also have a question.

Why is it constantly necessary to bring up anything from Preboot Archie at any point in this current time?

Most people here seem to auto agree that this run is better, so what's the point?

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Some part of me want to walk in here and start harping about how this tedium is the inevitable outcome of a comic more reigned into the games-verse.... but I understand that's only a part of the problem here.

... that and the fact I'd probably be brick'd to death too.

 

Didn't someone say that was part of it?

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I'm fine with where the comics are at right now. I don't think the rouge's gallery is large enough just yet to really push the interconnected narratives that Flynn excelled at toward the end of his Archie days. There he had Eggy, Snivley, the Egg Bosses and even regional dictators like Regina and Naugus to bounce off of. 20 odd characters that shifted the balance of power around gave actions and reactions to everything that happens. We don't have that in IDW yet. We've got Starline and the Skunk duo...

There was also other regional heroes, civilians, and neutrals to help flesh things out both on Sonic's end and from world perspective as well.

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

We don't have that in IDW yet. We've got Starline and the Skunk duo...

I think the best thing the comics can do in year two, is start to roll in additional threats. They don't have to be Eggman tier threats (although Metal Sonic was a good start before he fell back in line) but I would like to see some additional antagonists with their own plot points added into the mix. It doesn't have to be new characters either. The Zeti are sitting on the bench. Nega is still stuck in limbo somewhere. Capt'n Whisker and Johnny are up and about. Somebody give me an Infinite? Shoot, creative writing can get around that roadblock. Have some dastardly pit the Sol dimension against the Chaos dimension and Blaze turns into a reluctant frenemy for a bit. Give Shadow another hard-on for the master emerald an he gets to be a bad guy again. G-Mel can get hacked, GUN could get some spotty intel forcing them to burn Team Dark there is a ton of stuff to play with here.

We just need more complicated and dynamic interconnections.

Pretty much. I also like how you noted we could have a few personal struggles and ideological disagreements between the heroes again, which is part of why Issue 2 was so good.

We might be waitin a good while for at least half of that, though.

 

 

1 hour ago, Jack the Shadow said:

I dunno, I'm loving the villains so far except Tumble, who has got nothing really, even Rough has the tail thing but it's not much, they just fill the role left by the Hooligans.

Rough is the little teal one and Tumble is the big beige one.

And to be fair, they are not really major plot characters themselves and they are much more aggressive than the Hooligans.

 

[Kellodrawsalot]

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Well, saying that is kinda waste of space.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does anybody, ANYBODY thought that Archie Sonic was way better before Flynn took 

yes.

 

yes they exist.

[StaticMania]

Is that a problem?

Do they need not to exist?

[Sonic Fan J]

3 hours ago, Splash the Otter said:

Say what you like about pre-reboot Archie, but at least it had its own identity. IDW just feels like an advertisement for the games.

About all I'm going to say is that Archie was also licensed out as an advertisement for the games but had no oversight which is what resulted in it being what it was.

On the IDW book, I think a lot of what is hurting with the whole world building scenario and effecting people's ability to care is that we are still too attached to the Resistance and they are pretty much scattered everywhere without anything concrete tying them to any given location like Knuckles. As a result, Sonic has to be all over the place as well to keep everyone tied together and that plays against the structure that works for the games and allows for more intimate stories where the comic should shine.

One of the strengths of the game settings is that they are typically tied to a single location which can be explored in detail from beginning to end. Sonic 1 had South Island, Sonic CD LIttle Planet, Sonic 2 West Side Island, 3&K Angel Island, 3D Blast Flicky Island, Adventure Station Square, Adventure 2 Capital City and the Ark, 06 Soleanna, Colors Eggman's Interstellar Amusement Park, Lost World the Lost Hex, even forces with the Resistance Base. And when these stories didn't have a place that served as the focal point of the adventure it had characters to focus on such as Chip, Black Doom, Professor Pickle, etc.

To me, as much as I am able to enjoy the comic for what it is right now, the biggest thing that it is missing is a focused sense of adventure which rewards us with a sense of discovery, curiosity, attachment, concern, anxiety, and relief. Sure the downside involves attachment wanting us to revisit the characters and locales of the story, but that intimacy is necessary to make the story have weight. I mean just take Shadow's story in Adventure 2 and then imagine that in a comic arc with a comic original character that they can actually die and stay dead because they aren't the licensed characters. Even if Sonic saves the day in the end these lesser characters and their stories which Sonic chooses to get involved with are where Sonic can fail either by them changing sides, disagreeing with how Sonic saved the day, or even dying or just plain being injured. At that point you have stakes and you wonder can Sonic pull it off, or perhaps you have a Station Square scenario where the collateral truly is unforgivable and that sets someone on a path of vengeance against Sonic later. Arguably one could say that the book would become cluttered with original characters, but that's why at the end of the adventure and story Sonic moves on and leaves behind the characters who were only needed for the story unless they have a reason to move on as well. Just because a character was introduced doesn't mean they have to become a member of the main cast.

Lastly, the other benefit to using the game narrative structure of focusing on a single or handful of locations for an entire story is that just like the games you can keep it self contained so that way it doesn't clash with the games narrative and it is simply something that happened that can be referenced later to provide a sense of continuity or even more if necessary.

I guess I would say if I was to simplify all of this down is that what IDW needs is start a story arc from nothing but Sonic arriving someone and building an intimate adventure from there with naturally escalating stakes which are related to the adventure at hand. Right now running around all over the place without any sense of direction or investment will only work for as long as the Resistance and its derivatives are the point of focus which should not be the case. Sonic and even Eggman are characters who follow legends, rumors, or just what sound like the next good idea to their next conflict and get embroiled with whatever happens to be the location of their next encounter with anyone else from the recurring cast showing up if they happen to catch up with Sonic or are already there on their own business. Getting involved with the locals is what Sonic and Eggman do and it is what gives most Sonic stories their heart. Sticking to the static main cast only interacting amongst themselves is nice right now as a novelty due to how botched the games have felt in that regard of late, but sooner than later you have to get back to what makes the game stories work and to me that is investment in a focused location or handful thereof and the characters who Sonic and Eggman interact with while there. You don't have to take the focus off of Sonic and Eggman either, you just need to have them focus on the location and characters in the story like in Adventure 2, Unleashed, and even Colors frankly. I can't help but hope that that will come sooner than later. Until then though, hopefully I'll still be entertained by the book as I have been so far.

[Dr. Detective]

5 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I love how people are automatically assuming that because we have legit criticisms about the series, it just means "we want more furry drama".

 

Forget the fact that people have explained what their problems are in clear detail and in respectful manner. Clearly we just want more furry drama...

 

Nobody said that. 

 

[Slashy]

Never really cared about the comics until the IDW reboot just because I wanted to see what the fuss was about regarding the comics especially since the games have been lacking in the story department for nearly a decade.

I know several people find the comic uninteresting, but a common suggestion has been to focus on shorter, more self-contained stories. Is there a reason why the comics can't be this way? I understand people like their loads of world building and epic story arcs that we got back in Archie, but if the mandates are making it difficult to write the comic this way then why continue? Champions and Treasure Team Tango were examples of this and people loved it, why can't the majority of the comic be this way?

[Skull Leader]

58 minutes ago, Slashy said:

Never really cared about the comics until the IDW reboot just because I wanted to see what the fuss was about regarding the comics especially since the games have been lacking in the story department for nearly a decade.

I know several people find the comic uninteresting, but a common suggestion has been to focus on shorter, more self-contained stories. Is there a reason why the comics can't be this way? I understand people like their loads of world building and epic story arcs that we got back in Archie, but if the mandates are making it difficult to write the comic this way then why continue? Champions and Treasure Team Tango were examples of this and people loved it, why can't the majority of the comic be this way?

I really like the idea of self contained stories, since not everything has to be about some grand plot to save the world. It would be nice if after a larger arc, the narrative took a break and had the characters be the ones in charge instead of the plot for a few issues before the next major story arc begins.

[SBR2]

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Nobody said that. 

 

I'm honestly sorry if I came off like I was saying that. 

I'm just saying there were comics that were so much worse than IDW and yes I know "It could be worse" isn't a strong argument but as I'm rereading the Archie comic right now I just can't bring myself to gripe about what honestly feels like nitpicksat best. Because when Archie Sonic was bad it was baaaad. So I'm just saying I'll take boring and too Segay or whatever over that any day. 

[Slashy]

16 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

I really like the idea of self contained stories, since not everything has to be about some grand plot to save the world. It would be nice if after a larger arc, the narrative took a break and had the characters be the ones in charge instead of the plot for a few issues before the next major story arc begins.

I think several complaints I have seen in the thread would be resolved if the comic focused more on these types of story arcs.

1. It would be easy to explore the world since arcs could focus on a location or an aspect of the world, since the arc is self-contained there is an urgency to actually explore and explain these aspects as after the arc is done it won't be seen for a while.

2. It gives an easy way to explore several new characters and give them depth without the fear of them overshadowing the existing cast, provided you keep them tied to story arcs and not have them be full on regularly recurring characters. Since a character may not be seen for long after a story arc, we need to know all the basics about them in a short amount of time.

3. It allows the comic the flexibility of trying new ideas while still staying tied to the games. If comic specific locations and characters usually remain tied to story arcs, then it will always feel recognizable to those who play the games because those characters and locations are the most recurring elements. The series is written this way, so I think SEGA may be happy that the comics follow suit. Perhaps the mandates would be less of an issue and possibly lead to SEGA reducing them as well if the comic was written in the same vein as their other material.

4. It allows the comic to try more experimental ideas because if an idea doesn't work out it isn't that long before a new idea can be tried out.

[Sonic Fan J]

I would pretty much be good with shorter arcs as well due to pretty much most of the above given reasons as well as those given in my last post. The only thing I would say for a fact that I wouldn't want coming out of this are uniform issue counts for arcs. If one arc needs only 2 issues and another needs 7 don't force them both to be 5 for the sake of rather unnecessary uniformity. Tell the story in the amount of time it takes to tell the story as that results in the best pacing and the highest quality version of the story.

[Slashy]

Just now, Sonic Fan J said:

I would pretty much be good with shorter arcs as well due to pretty much most of the above given reasons as well as those given in my last post. The only thing I would say for a fact that I wouldn't want coming out of this are uniform issue counts for arcs. If one arc needs only 2 issues and another needs 7 don't force them both to be 5 for the sake of rather unnecessary uniformity. Tell the story in the amount of time it takes to tell the story as that results in the best pacing and the highest quality version of the story.

Uniform arcs are already a problem. I think it would be better to set a maximum limit of 8 issues for an arc. There are very very few Sonic stories that require more than 8 comic issues to tell their stories, and yet Ian Flynn seems to want yearly arcs to be the norm.

In general most arcs should be 2-6 issues.

[DabigRG]

23 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

I also have a question.

Why is it constantly necessary to bring up anything from Preboot Archie at any point in this current time?

Most people here seem to auto agree that this run is better, so what's the point?

To have something immediate to argue against.

[StaticMania]

I'm gonna assume the reason is that they just can't then.

Because no other explanation will be satisfactory.

[SBR2]

1 minute ago, DabigRG said:

To have something immediate to argue against.

Yeah pretty much. I mean I'm trying to make my point so having a point of comparison kinda helps to argue my point. 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

I'm honestly sorry if I came off like I was saying that. 

Don't worry. That's literally not what you said. 

[Silvereyes]

One thing with the arcs might simply to be with rereleasing them for the trade. Since they are releasing each volume with 4 issues each, I'm not sure if that factors into it.

I dunno, I kindof agree on some fronts about not needing a 12 issue storyline each year. The thing about early Archie was that so many of their villians and characters were introduced in a story that was just for 1 or 2 issues. Evil Sonic and his whole evil dimension was introduced in 1 story, with Evil Sonic and co tending to appear in 1-2 issue stories before Flynn did his bigger Moebius plot when they tried to invade Mobius. Monkey Khan and all his associate stuff was only ever really shown over 3 or 4 seperate issues before the massive 16 issue Iron Dominion story happened.

I think it would be a good idea to perhaps have a couple of individual issues just so more stuff is introduced, even if in a very shallow way. I don't really see why the metal virus storyline had to happen immedietly after the Metal Sonic one has just ended. Maybe say have #13 Sonic + ally take on a new villian, while #14, Amy sends Sonic to plot device city to try and get them to join the Restoration but they refuse because they have their own society. Basic stuff to try and give the world a bit of depth, and maybe in the future perhaps can be returned to for a future story.

I do think that if we do get a second book running, be it a Tangle and Whisper book or a Sonic Universe-esque book, I definetly wouldn't mind seeing more 1-2 issue stories. If the main book is going to effectively be serialised, I think the second book going for a more episodic approach would help compliment it.