Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Big Panda]

Whatever the comic decides to go with in terms of the mobian/human connection, whether they’re on a single world or two, I really wish they would actually address it soon.

I know Ian doesn’t want to draw attention to it just yet, but the longer he continues to ignore it while simultaneously dropping references to all the major human-based events from the games (the ARK, the Black Arms invasion, the shattered world crisis), the bigger the elephant in the room will become.

[Shadowlax]

8 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Nobody hates it, but from sure seems split whenever it's as good as Archie was (then again, we said the same thing about Archie Reboot).

( Only I miss Sonic Universe book? One tittle isn't enough to sustain me, yet alone Sonic's absurdly large cast. )

Most common complains are
- World feels empty and artificial, just a (kinda boring) background for actions
- Slow  pace, with repetitive threat, that don't feel like a challenge
- Sonic's friends are too quickly exchanged, thus barely contribute to the plot and leave you unsatisfied with their appearances.

I agree with most of what you said, I think the current threat of " Virus " feels very real, but that's probably more so because of how far its spread and narrative it represents a moral quandary more complicated than " I don't think I can beat the guy ". It just took a year and some change to get here.Though to be fair, we don't know if this will sustain, an the book is a lot more brand friendly in a myriad ways. I imagine, things can change on a dime if sonic team wants it too.

Outside of that tough, I agree with your complaints. I agree with only missing universe. Though hopefully that is replaced with named miniseries

[caitash]

17 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

- Sonic's friends are too quickly exchanged, thus barely contribute to the plot and leave you unsatisfied with their appearances.

This bothers me the most tbh. I don’t see why the exchange needs to happen as quickly as it is and I’m not used to it I guess. Friends could overlap more to make their stays longer and result in some less common groups. I’d be able to tolerate this current setup of Sonic ‘staying away’ from his friends to lower the risk of infecting them if we hadn’t had the same one-friend-at-a-time setup during most of Year 1, but that’s just me.

[Shadowlax]

12 hours ago, caitash said:

This bothers me the most tbh. I don’t see why the exchange needs to happen as quickly as it is and I’m not used to it I guess. Friends could overlap more to make their stays longer and result in some less common groups. I’d be able to tolerate this current setup of Sonic ‘staying away’ from his friends to lower the risk of infecting them if we hadn’t had the same one-friend-at-a-time setup during most of Year 1, but that’s just me.

I would imagine the idea is that some of the focus in a lot of scenario's still needs to be on sonic in some capcaity. Whether it be IDW, SEGA or both the idea of a book where the friends overlap and sonic takes a bit of a hypothetical backseat to that is a negative. There are exceptions, but they prove the rule here. The exceptions being if I'm remembering correctly,

new IDW character being around game character interaction between them is fairly minimal and ( and often times serves as an introduction )

Multiple game characters, but there is 1 game character in focus and they largely don't interact with the other characters that character is primarily interacting with sonic

And the big team up at the end of the year

This book is very " brand Focus " and right now that seems to be , yearly resets and largely a focus on sonic and few other characters they deem worthy to do so. And if I were to be so bold, I would suggest that reasonably IDW doesn't exactly have instantaneous faith in the sonic IP. Fumbles aside, its a new venture for them and I would imagine trust needs to be built and it needs to be proven that sonic books can sell. Which they have been, so that's good. Voice your opinion for more books and more likely than not it will solve this issue, because the sales are there. I also can imagine folks at IDW thinking the sonic IP is kinda weird, resulting in what is ... for the most part a very safe book. This is all ontop of what sega may or may not want.

 

[DabigRG]

On 6/4/2019 at 11:39 AM, Ernest the Panda said:

Whatever the comic decides to go with in terms of the mobian/human connection, whether they’re on a single world or two, I really wish they would actually address it soon.

I know Ian doesn’t want to draw attention to it just yet, but the longer he continues to ignore it while simultaneously dropping references to all the major human-based events from the games (the ARK, the Black Arms invasion, the shattered world crisis), the bigger the elephant in the room will become.

To be fair, nothing that's come up thus far has necessitated actively acknowledging the human world stuff aside from the Eggman base Starline takes over to revert Mr. Tinker essentially being the Final Egg. And Team Dark was already around in Forces helping the Resistance, so their presence thus far hasn't really asked for explanation, for better or worse.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

To be fair, nothing that's come up thus far has necessitated actively acknowledging the human world stuff aside from the Eggman base Starline takes over to revert Mr. Tinker essentially being the Final Egg. And Team Dark was already around in Forces helping the Resistance, so their presence thus far hasn't really asked for explanation, for better or worse.

Well there doesn't really need to be an explanation. Before I landed on the other side of the issue and thought " What about the human world " , but to be honest who cares. Its not an elephant in the room, the only person with a tangible human world connection is shadow. And even then the only thing that requires is shadow popping in and checking that its literally not on fire. And along with that, most of the humans are bad or uninteresting and stiff and mostly work as plot devices. I feel like sega's shift from human land stuff is a very slow response to criticism they had been receiving for years about the humans not being interesting and being weird and stiff.

So is it really an elephant in the room if like... no one cares really? I get the feeling the unique sonic characters sell more to children than the humans in the background. So I them just continuing to ignore humans will work out for them, in comic and in the games.

And bonus,

Spoiler

I think it might make the stories more interesting for people like me, who like shadow a character who largely in all 3 era's of comic he's existed in disconnected form the greater sonic anthro world and this book might get him to interact with it and make him feel like an entity that exists in it.

I don't think it needs an explanation and I think its gonna work out for everyone if they just keep pretending human world isn't a thing

[DabigRG]

12 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Well there doesn't really need to be an explanation. Before I landed on the other side of the issue and thought " What about the human world " , but to be honest who cares. Its not an elephant in the room, the only person with a tangible human world connection is shadow. And even then the only thing that requires is shadow popping in and checking that its literally not on fire. And along with that, most of the humans are bad or uninteresting and stiff and mostly work as plot devices. I feel like sega's shift from human land stuff is a very slow response to criticism they had been receiving for years about the humans not being interesting and being weird and stiff.

So is it really an elephant in the room if like... no one cares really? I get the feeling the unique sonic characters sell more to children than the humans in the background. So I them just continuing to ignore humans will work out for them, in comic and in the games.

And bonus,

  Hide contents

I think it might make the stories more interesting for people like me, who like shadow a character who largely in all 3 era's of comic he's existed in disconnected form the greater sonic anthro world and this book might get him to interact with it and make him feel like an entity that exists in it.

I don't think it needs an explanation and I think its gonna work out for everyone if they just keep pretending human world isn't a thing

How did I know you'd be the first responder? 

[Red]

So did the comic get delayed again? I checked Amazon and it's telling me July is getting both #18 and #19. So no Sonic in June then?

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

4 hours ago, Red said:

So did the comic get delayed again? I checked Amazon and it's telling me July is getting both #18 and #19. So no Sonic in June then?

Asked David Marioette on twitter and he said 26th.

[Kellodrawsalot]

Jewel keeps reminding me of SU's Aquamarine,  whenever I read her dialog I hear Aquamarine's voice instead

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Jewel keeps reminding me of SU's Aquamarine,  whenever I read her dialog I hear Aquamarine's voice instead

Well, she IS keeping Peridot and Lapis Lazuli in her museum.

[Sonictrainer]

Another cool animation created by JoeAdok on Deviantart

[PublicEnemy1]

5 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

Another cool animation created by JoeAdok on Deviantart

New Sonic fighting game. NOW.

[StaticMania]

Good stuff, dude.

It's always the good stuff.

[jgcatindig]

8 hours ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

New Sonic fighting game. NOW.

Sonic Battle sequel when? 

[Silvereyes]

So here's a thought. Back with Archie in the 90s, they would release 8 Sonic special issues, and later 15 Sonic Super Specials. Since IDW will presumably do an Annual every year, would you want an Annual in the vein of any of Archie's specials, because when you look back, the Archie specials would in fact cover quite a wide variety of themes. There was:

1) Game tie-ins (although it seems with IDW, it looks like any tie-ins will be one shot comics. Wonder if Mario & Sonic 2020 will get a comic tie-in?)

2) Themed issues, like Sonic kids or that issue with 5 short stories about female characters.

3) Crossover with another franchise, like with Image or Archie's Sabrina the Teenage Witch

4) Parody of something, like Sailor Moon, Sin City, or Guardians of the Galaxy. (GOTG parody was 2 regular issues, but apparently that was intended for a Super Special before they were cancelled.)

5) Basically a normal issue but with a big sizer and bigger plot, like how Mecha Madness takes place between 2 issues, or Brave New World.

6) A reprint of a previous issue but with added pages to make it bigger, like with the "director's cut" of issue #50.

7) Whatever in god's name Sonic Live was.

I should stress for myself, I'm pretty happy with the Annuals being just short story collections. With IDW issues only have 1 story per comic, and with the idea that the main Sonic the Hedgehog is going to have 12 issue plotlines, I think the Annuals as being short story collections with minimum "significance" with the main book is fine with me. But I was wondering if you'd like to see other ideas pop up?

[DabigRG]

26 minutes ago, Silvereyes said:

So here's a thought. Back with Archie in the 90s, they would release 8 Sonic special issues, and later 15 Sonic Super Specials. Since IDW will presumably do an Annual every year, would you want an Annual in the vein of any of Archie's specials, because when you look back, the Archie specials would in fact cover quite a wide variety of themes. There was:

1) Game tie-ins (although it seems with IDW, it looks like any tie-ins will be one shot comics. Wonder if Mario & Sonic 2020 will get a comic tie-in?)

2) Themed issues, like Sonic kids or that issue with 5 short stories about female characters.

3) Crossover with another franchise, like with Image or Archie's Sabrina the Teenage Witch

4) Parody of something, like Sailor Moon, Sin City, or Guardians of the Galaxy. (GOTG parody was 2 regular issues, but apparently that was intended for a Super Special before they were cancelled.)

5) Basically a normal issue but with a big sizer and bigger plot, like how Mecha Madness takes place between 2 issues, or Brave New World.

6) A reprint of a previous issue but with added pages to make it bigger, like with the "director's cut" of issue #50.

7) Whatever in god's name Sonic Live was.

I should stress for myself, I'm pretty happy with the Annuals being just short story collections. With IDW issues only have 1 story per comic, and with the idea that the main Sonic the Hedgehog is going to have 12 issue plotlines, I think the Annuals as being short story collections with minimum "significance" with the main book is fine with me. But I was wondering if you'd like to see other ideas pop up?

There was also that Sonic Vs Naugus story that got retooled to better fit canon for a FCBD issue.

[Silvereyes]

10 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

There was also that Sonic Vs Naugus story that got retooled to better fit canon for a FCBD issue.

I don't know what FCBD stands for, sorry. You mean the one in Sonic Super Special #15? I thought it was pretty rubbish honestly, Naugus was assumed dead, turns out he is alive, Sonic and him fight for a bit until Naugus is killed, for really reals this time. It felt like nothing was accomplished and felt very lacklustre for a "special" issue, the Sin City parody just making it more bizarre.

[Sonictrainer]

Just now, Silvereyes said:

I don't know what FCBD stands for, sorry. You mean the one in Sonic Super Special #15? I thought it was pretty rubbish honestly, Naugus was assumed dead, turns out he is alive, Sonic and him fight for a bit until Naugus is killed, for really reals this time. It felt like nothing was accomplished and felt very lacklustre for a "special" issue, the Sin City parody just making it more bizarre.

FCBD stands for Free Comic Book Day.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Silvereyes said:

I don't know what FCBD stands for, sorry. You mean the one in Sonic Super Special #15? I thought it was pretty rubbish honestly, Naugus was assumed dead, turns out he is alive, Sonic and him fight for a bit until Naugus is killed, for really reals this time. It felt like nothing was accomplished and felt very lacklustre for a "special" issue, the Sin City parody just making it more bizarre.

Free Comic Book Day.

He wasn't supposed to be dead, he was supposed to be sealed in the Zone of Silence.

But yeah, it wasn't that well regarded.

Oh shoot, was the Sin City thing in that same special?  

[Silvereyes]

Oh OK. I'm not sure Free Comic Book Day exists in the UK.

[Polkadi~☆]

8 hours ago, Silvereyes said:

Oh OK. I'm not sure Free Comic Book Day exists in the UK.

It's an international event. If you know a comic book store in the area, they might have done it. However, it's only once a year.

[Big Panda]

Just about every comic book store that imports American comics takes part in it.

[Silvereyes]

Wow, I had no idea that was a thing. Will need to remmber for next year.

[Rosaleia]

Mnn, I'm having trouble getting into the IDW comic, honestly for a lot of the reasons other people have pointed out already.

It feels very much like a rushed advertisement and less of an actual story. The stories are tailored more around Sonic pursuing a fleeting plot than it is around the actual characters, and the relationships between the characters aren't fleshed out very well. Its very shallow, imo.

There's so much this series could touch on thats interesting, but isn't because its to eager to rush into a new story without actually building upon characters they have. I kind of felt like, perhaps there could have been more of an emotional impact between Mr.Tinker and the other characters had they not just rushed to get rid of him. And what about all the children and villagers who loved and believed in him? What about Tails? He did leave Sonic at a pivotal point in Forces. Do people treat him differently for that? Does he feel any underlying guilt or inadaquacy to be by his friend's side? I feel like the comic could have done a lot more to kind of fill in a lot of the gaps and plotholes regarding his depiction in Forces by adding more context to things. Same with Shadow and his potential difficulties living in a world that would likely assume he's some kind of traitor. Also, Amy's becoming more like Sally, but I fear in some of the wrong ways. I always thought she was a more interesting choice for a leader compared to Sally because of the fact she's younger, less experienced and flawed in various ways, with more room to see her actually grow. Instead it kind of feels like Ian's content with just putting her in this perpetual Sally 2.0 position with no fleshing out.

We don't need to know the pasts of these characters for them to be 'interesting', I don't think. But at the same time, the story's created so many subplots that can be exploited that are being ignored a because they're over-emphasizing Sonic pursuing the plot at the expense of the other characters and what personal issues could find them compelling.