Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Multikaris]

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 

For most of her life? No she was bollers attempt among many to replace characters he wasn't fond of from the games. She wasn't particularly good or interesting and was kind of a mary sue.  At the end of her life, she was interesting. She was someone who had a message and was trying to get the message out and didn't necessarily with sonic and his friends , and that's interesting. See with shadow there's nothing much that can be done with that type of friction. No one is gonna learn anything as its already been made abundantly clear , and even with character changes shadow, shadow not agreeing with sonic and thinking he's handling the situation incorrectly... is inline with his character. They are characterized with people with opposing ideas and generally do their own thing and mind their own business.

A mina type character presents a very new, and relevant complication to lives of potentially every hero/antihero on animal planet. Simply put a super popular , super revered , beloved house hold name super star talking mad shit about sonic and his friends and swaying public opinion.

And you can play it both ways though I personally prefer the " Dark Route " in this scenario

The light route would be having her kinda disagree with how sonic and friends handle the situation. Like maybe at the end of this shadow's like " YOU ARE THE REASON THIS HAPPENED IN THIS FIRST PLACE " she and a bunch of people hear it because maybe its like televised or something and then later she comes out speaking out about sonic and coand how they maybe need to not be playing hero. And kind of make their a bit harder. 

   
And then there's dark route. You could potentially do a lot of socially relevant stuff with a toxic, popular popstar asshole spouting horrible opinions that unfortunately too much of the public agrees with over the air ways, tv , internet and swaying some opinion. Making the lives of the heroes much much worse. Blaming the resistance movement for being the cause of the things eggman is doing around the world and their inability to deal with problems. And sometimes just outright species-ism. She could suggest that we need to commandeer the M.E because knuckles just isn't " mentally equipped to handle it " and make terrible illusions as to why that's there's no more echidinas. She could suggest shadow needs to go back to space because he's an alien.Trying to get blaze to go away suggesting she isn't good at ruling because she seems to "take to many vacations to hour world " . Suggesting that silvers future continues to be bad because he associates himself with sonic and he would be much better off getting on the right side of history.  She can have this whole network of people finding out info on folks for her to gain social sway and sort of have the citizens wish to remove these once beloved heroes from their world. And sonic and co would have to navigate this, and maybe possibly have a shadow bonding moment because shadow defending people who may actively hate him is kinda his mo, and they finally get how dehumanizing that is.

And they can't just hit her, right? She's a private citizen, this being caught on tape would play into the fears she has fostered among the public making their lives worse. Someone does try to attack her for her views maybe it does get worse, and that's also a complication in the plan.

Whether she's an eggman plant or fully acting upon her own volition, there's a lot of potential here.

So, more like Fabian Vane or Justin Beaver, then? Mina, for whatever reason, is the only positively-portrayed pop singer in the franchise off the top of my head. 

[DabigRG]

5 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

So, more like Fabian Vane or Justin Beaver, then? Mina, for whatever reason, is the only positively-portrayed pop singer in the franchise off the top of my head. 

Probably cause she wasn't conceived as one. 

Who's Fabian Vane? 

[Multikaris]

23 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Probably cause she wasn't conceived as one. 

Who's Fabian Vane? 

He’s from a few Fleetway issues. Amy and Tekno notably got annoyed by him.

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, Forgetful Panda said:

You can also argue that Mystic Ruins is on the human world and Eggman, Starline, etc. have their own way of getting to it.

God. The idea of trying to sort out which locations are on which world gives me a headache. 

I wonder if Ian can call in and get a confirmation on anything like that. 

I mean, he wouldn't have to if they did the extremely easy, obvious, and far smarter thing of just having it be set on one world where both humans and animal-people coexisted but why do that when you can make people angry and the job of a story-teller harder with unnecessary nonsense? 

[Big Panda]

I’m worried now that it’s too late to go back if Sega were to change their tune on the two worlds thing.

It’d be hard to for Ian to turn around and claim it was one world all along after this worldwide epidemic which somehow managed to avoid affecting any humans.

[Shadowlax]

12 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

But, if I look at this from the perspective of Sonic, I still don't like because his reaction to this major change in Amy as it kind of goes against my expectations of Sonic. Sonic is supposed to get angry and take action when he sees an injustice, and there are few greater injustices than seeing an optimistic person reduced to stressed out and desperate due to a world ending plague being unleashed on

 

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it. But there isn't any anger on Sonic's part, and while that is fine, the lack of anger isn't explored when it should be. After all, this whole mess is his fault for sparing Eggman, so a lot of his anger should be aimed inward creating character conflict like @Shadowlax has been demanding. Instead, Shadow could be removed entirely from the IDW run so far and nothing of any real interest would be lost to me. For all of my complaints about detailed and dense story telling, no less how Amy has been handled this arc, at least no one has been as useless and unnecessary as Shadow. And frankly that sucks. I miss introspective I'll do this myself Shadow because he knows the dangers and his abilities. Egocentric my pride before the world Shadow is a waste of space in my opinion which plain sucks

So I wanna talk about, this. I don't think the problem is shadow being egotistical. Though while like you I prefer introspective shadow,  the issue lies deeper than him just being full of himself. This shadow has, unfortunately the same problem as boom shadow has which is...why? A lot of characters don't work without context and shadow is one of them And i think the overwhelming negative reaction to what has happened recently, and the desire to blame it on someone is proof that that is true.

So lets take a character , vegeta , and let me show you and various others in this thread about something I have been saying since last year and what I have felt the real issue is. But I don't think I have ever explained it. Vegeta works because there is a vector for his anger , his egotism, whatever. Whether its goku being stronger than him, protecting his family hating freiza, there's like a point. There's a point narrative that allows for his personality function in the narrative and allows for people to root for him. Even he had just murdered part of a stadium full of people. His fighting boo and fighting for his family and his son and after finally getting the power he thought he wanted and realizing it wasn't worth it. And you cheer for him, you know it isn't gonna work out... but you feel for him. Its emotional, there's a narrative ark there. It makes sense.

Shadow isn't even vegeta because...who's he fighting for... or what? Because he isn't specifically negative towards sonic specifically , he's just kind of anti social and angry towards everyone. Even his friends he doesn't interact with anymore. He isn't working towards someone as a goal, because to be blunt he's stronger than like most everyone. He's stronger than sonic, especially in this comic. Heck the recent issue went out of its way to have sonic say " Shadow isn't at his full power level to emphasize how much damage he was still doing " . Well maybe its an idea, to protect people? But that... hasn't really been delved into. Shadow seemingly is in that mindset in issue 6 but it quickly becomes more personal. And gets even more personally in issue 19. So maria and her promise isn't really a motivating factor either.

As a red robot with a ponytail and lightbulb nipples who shadow should have fought once said " WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR"

What IS he fighting for? And that's what I mean when I say " he has yet to been established" in this book. I can tell you why every other character is fighting for , and what they are doing it. But I cant tell you why shadow is doing anything he's doing because it isn't constant and makes no sense. He's not vegeta, vegeta has reasons. He's not even old broly. He's

This guy. Now some of you all like " Who is this man who conveniently to shadowlax's point actually kind of looks like shadow the hedgehog. " His name is cumber, the evil saiyan. He's from dragonball heroes. He has no motivation, he's just evil and a dick and fucks shit up. That's it. That's what he is right now. There is very little connective tissue between his actions and what's motivating them. There are people ( usually rouge ) trying to vocalize why he's doing what he's doing. But it largely doesn't pan out. Shadow's a rogue element. And it baffles me when i'm told he has been established, and then shit like 19 happens.

A combination of Sonic Team's editoral and Ian Flynn's desire to write this character a certain  way . The problem isn't that he's egotistical. Its that he's not doing anything, for anything.

But what's worse , as you have mentioned. Its benefits no one. Why does sonic ever need to think critically about anything if his opponents aren't. Why do these things matter if no one is going be narrative reprimanded for it in a way that results in growth.

 

[DabigRG]

38 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

God. The idea of trying to sort out which locations are on which world gives me a headache. 

I wonder if Ian can call in and get a confirmation on anything like that. 

I mean, he wouldn't have to if they did the extremely easy, obvious, and far smarter thing of just having it be set on one world where both humans and animal-people coexisted but why do that when you can make people angry and the job of a story-teller harder with unnecessary nonsense? 

Eh, not really: the Adventure and most Shadow heavy games take place on the human world, the Classics, Handhelds, Heroes, and the other Modern games take place in Sonic's World, and things like characters and Emeralds can travel between the two.

[Razule]

37 minutes ago, Forgetful Panda said:

I’m worried now that it’s too late to go back if Sega were to change their tune on the two worlds thing.

It’d be hard to for Ian to turn around and claim it was one world all along after this worldwide epidemic which somehow managed to avoid affecting any humans.

They're on the other side of the planet, like how we only see the not-broken side of the moon.

[Diogenes]

34 minutes ago, Forgetful Panda said:

I’m worried now that it’s too late to go back if Sega were to change their tune on the two worlds thing.

It’d be hard to for Ian to turn around and claim it was one world all along after this worldwide epidemic which somehow managed to avoid affecting any humans.

Nah they'd just say they were all offscreen. That's basically the vibe of how the two worlds thing has been handled in general; the games have only ever made the absolute vaguest allusions to it even being a thing, and the comics will likely do the same, so there won't be anything of substance to contradict if they do switch back.

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

What IS he fighting for? And that's what I mean when I say " he has yet to been established" in this book. I can tell you why every other character is fighting for , and what they are doing it. But I cant tell you why shadow is doing anything he's doing because it isn't constant and makes no sense. He's not vegeta, vegeta has reasons. He's not even old broly. He's

This guy. Now some of you all like " Who is this man who conveniently to shadowlax's point actually kind of looks like shadow the hedgehog. " His name is cumber, the evil saiyan. He's from dragonball heroes. He has no motivation, he's just evil and a dick and fucks shit up. That's it. That's what he is right now. There is very little connective tissue between his actions and what's motivating them.

Essentially.

Though I thought Cumber looked to be controlled by Cooler or whoever?

 

[Kellodrawsalot]

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Still kneejerking at the mere invoking of Archie, I see? 

Just giving out my honest opnion, not to mention I didn't say anything bad about Hope or Mina but you still chose to ignore that I see.

[DabigRG]

4 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Just giving out my honest opnion, not to mention I didn't say anything bad about Hope or Mina but you still chose to ignore that I see.

Ignoring=Replying?

Uh, anyway, the reason for my unimpressed reaction is that you ended up...well, ignoring the true point of that post altogether.

Which wasn't really fair to him/her.

[PickleBrows]

3 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

My theory for the 2 world is since we have Mystic Ruins (Tails's lab, Eggman's base) in IDW comics, Mystic ruins is on Mobius, and the train from mystic ruins is the portal to the human world (station square)

Spoiler

I dunno how you've managed to accidentally bring Thomas and the Magic Railroad logic into the Sonic Universe but I'm more than happy to go along with this 

[Kuzu]

I still don't agree Shadow has no purpose, but we've beaten that horse to death by now.

[Kazhnuz]

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

My theory for the 2 world is since we have Mystic Ruins (Tails's lab, Eggman's base) in IDW comics, Mystic ruins is on Mobius, and the train from mystic ruins is the portal to the human world (station square)

The Tails' Lab shown here seems to be more in some kind of GHZ-like though, it didn't seemed like being in the Mystic Ruins at all (the problem is that the Tails' Lab is pretty inconsistent through the series having been shown in many different locations… A possibility is that Tails' build a lab when he need one).

[StaticMania]

So it's in the location it was in Sonic Battle...

Despite logic saying otherwise.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I still don't agree Shadow has no purpose, but we've beaten that horse to death by now.

If you feel like answering feel free. If you don't that's fine.

What does he do , that gives him unique purpose opposed to everyone else. And why is he doing it? This isn't sarcasm, or me trying to be coy, I genuinely cannot come up with anything that has been presented that makes him unique in that regard.

" Save the world " everyone's doing that, why is he special?

[DabigRG]

16 hours ago, lulzers said:

Say, what if IDW made expies of Geoffrey St. John, Mina Mongoose, Lien-Da, and Hope Kintobor respectively? We've already got a Dr. Finitevus expy in the form of Starline.

Come to think of it, if expies are on the table, I'm sure there are plenty of other characters both major and minor who could do with a fresh code of paint and a redux.

15 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

1) With exception o teleportation tech, FInitevus and Starline aren't that similar.

There's also the urbane demeanor and the intentional design elements.

The roles and [thus far] threat level of them are indeed different otherwise.

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They evil scientists, but dr Ellidy wasn't expy of Chuck.

Si if you're asking if I want someone just vaguely remind me of character x, then connection is too loose for me to care either way.  It't just recycling some tropes.

Eh, sorta? I mean, he was clearly more Old King Max's with Nate Morgan's influence.

But yes, that is an important factor in this topic that should be remembered.

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But even if you suggested my favorites, like Elias, I still don't feel the need for them. I rather move forward. (Not to mention how hard would be to recreated some of them).

Mm...yeah, Elias is one that's honestly super context heavy.

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3) With current model of 1-part stories there is no place for bigger OCs, even when we get a spin-off book it. Right now we could use more villains and Jewel/ElderScruffy/Vanilla sort of civilians, just important enough to make world more alive, not enough to take screen time.

Most likely. 

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My suggestion: give Amy second-in-command to give face to Restoration. Later that character would take over when we get bored with leader-Amy concept.

Ah yes, that's an excellent idea. That could go hand in hand with having another Geoffrey/Hershey even.

[Marco9966]

17 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

If you feel like answering feel free. If you don't that's fine.

What does he do , that gives him unique purpose opposed to everyone else. And why is he doing it? This isn't sarcasm, or me trying to be coy, I genuinely cannot come up with anything that has been presented that makes him unique in that regard.

" Save the world " everyone's doing that, why is he special?

Unless he has an arc with Black Arms or something related to his origin, he is just like anyone else.

[Kuzu]

20 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

If you feel like answering feel free. If you don't that's fine.

What does he do , that gives him unique purpose opposed to everyone else. And why is he doing it? This isn't sarcasm, or me trying to be coy, I genuinely cannot come up with anything that has been presented that makes him unique in that regard.

" Save the world " everyone's doing that, why is he special?

Is that any of that relevant to the current arc though? Why does he need a unique purpose in an arc that's not particularly about him to begin with? 

This is what I was getting at when I said this arc is an ensemble arc that focuses on many different characters, with obviously Sonic being at the center.

So I'm like...I don't really need to know what Shadow's most inner and deeper motivations are in that case, because they're not what the arc is about...

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

13 hours ago, Wraith said:

So are they like interesting characters in it or are they just more "threatening" and thus good

I’d say more the latter considering Worlds Unite wasn’t that good to begin with.

Tho, that ironically makes them more interesting than everything else they’ve been in given the added teeth they have.

[Shadowlax]

4 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Is that any of that relevant to the current arc though? Why does he need a unique purpose in an arc that's not particularly about him to begin with? 

Yes? Generally knowing what a character motivations are about allows you to follow and like that character, which is important considering they are deciding to focus issues around that character.

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This is what I was getting at when I said this arc is an ensemble arc that focuses on many different characters, with obviously Sonic being at the center.

So I'm like...I don't really need to know what Shadow's most inner and deeper motivations are in that case, because they're not what the arc is about...

It isn't what the arc is about... its what allow characters to function. They have effectively done this with every single other character, even gemril... and not shadow. So it doesn't have to be what the narrative is about it sticks out like a sore thumb in a franchise primarly about characters. Its why this franchise exists , its why it still exists because it was able to sell itself even through the bad times...with characters. I can go down a list of when and how characterization was established for every character, in this book ...except for shadow. And shadow sticks out even more for people because he's kind of the character you need to do that with because its kind of his thing.

So yeah you kinda do need to know, or that character is generally taking up space. That's generally important when trying to write stories with large casts. You to establish why folks are there. or they are..just there.

[Dr. Detective]

3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Eh, not really: the Adventure and most Shadow heavy games take place on the human world, the Classics, Handhelds, Heroes, and the other Modern games take place in Sonic's World, and things like characters and Emeralds can travel between the two.

I'm amazed that you think so. 

Assumptions like that just aren't an easy thing for me to make. I've been given no reason to feel comfortable about how this all works but I suppose I could be persuaded if somebody sorts things out. 

Apparently the floating island can pass between the two worlds as well. Just like in Sonic X.

[Shadowlax]

13 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

Unless he has an arc with Black Arms or something related to his origin, he is just like anyone else.

The issue with that is, he's not acting like that.

Is it is friends? He doesn't talk to them.

Maria, the only plot line that could have possibly been important to his characterization that could have meant something in that regard, was effectively rendered void with his character last issue.

His ideals? Same thing.

Everyone else defectively gets to slide on in because their characterizations generally line up with who they were previously and establish who they are. Shadow has done nothing except be angry so... yeah? Like if he was angry at a thing, sure. But he doesn't even seem to be angry at a thing... he just seems...angry.

[DabigRG]

7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 

For most of her life? No she was bollers attempt among many to replace characters he wasn't fond of from the games. She wasn't particularly good or interesting and was kind of a mary sue.  At the end of her life, she was interesting. She was someone who had a message and was trying to get the message out and didn't necessarily with sonic and his friends , and that's interesting. See with shadow there's nothing much that can be done with that type of friction. No one is gonna learn anything as its already been made abundantly clear , and even with character changes shadow, shadow not agreeing with sonic and thinking he's handling the situation incorrectly... is inline with his character. They are characterized with people with opposing ideas and generally do their own thing and mind their own business.

A mina type character presents a very new, and relevant complication to lives of potentially every hero/antihero on animal planet. Simply put a super popular , super revered , beloved house hold name super star talking mad shit about sonic and his friends and swaying public opinion.

And you can play it both ways though I personally prefer the " Dark Route " in this scenario

The light route would be having her kinda disagree with how sonic and friends handle the situation. Like maybe at the end of this shadow's like " YOU ARE THE REASON THIS HAPPENED IN THIS FIRST PLACE " she and a bunch of people hear it because maybe its like televised or something and then later she comes out speaking out about sonic and coand how they maybe need to not be playing hero. And kind of make their a bit harder. 

   
And then there's dark route. You could potentially do a lot of socially relevant stuff with a toxic, popular popstar asshole spouting horrible opinions that unfortunately too much of the public agrees with over the air ways, tv , internet and swaying some opinion. Making the lives of the heroes much much worse. Blaming the resistance movement for being the cause of the things eggman is doing around the world and their inability to deal with problems. And sometimes just outright species-ism. She could suggest that we need to commandeer the M.E because knuckles just isn't " mentally equipped to handle it " and make terrible illusions as to why that's there's no more echidinas. She could suggest shadow needs to go back to space because he's an alien.Trying to get blaze to go away suggesting she isn't good at ruling because she seems to "take to many vacations to hour world " . Suggesting that silvers future continues to be bad because he associates himself with sonic and he would be much better off getting on the right side of history.  She can have this whole network of people finding out info on folks for her to gain social sway and sort of have the citizens wish to remove these once beloved heroes from their world. And sonic and co would have to navigate this, and maybe possibly have a shadow bonding moment because shadow defending people who may actively hate him is kinda his mo, and they finally get how dehumanizing that is.

And they can't just hit her, right? She's a private citizen, this being caught on tape would play into the fears she has fostered among the public making their lives worse. Someone does try to attack her for her views maybe it does get worse, and that's also a complication in the plan.

Whether she's an eggman plant or fully acting upon her own volition, there's a lot of potential here.

Trying to figure out what this sounds like.

6 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Glad to see there aren't any defeatists concerning these guys, unlike with... Classic Sonic.

How so?

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The Six being substitute Hooligans is a good idea for them, SEGA seem to be making inroads already with Zavok as a go-to thug with little context.

Eh, nah, I think they're collectively better off being their own thing.

And honestly, Zavok in TSR's Story makes me think that was a role decided before they got the roster finalized and they just slipped him into it without adjusting more than his dialogue.

17 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

Unless he has an arc with Black Arms or something related to his origin, he is just like anyone else.

And/or fight a bigger/eviler villain or investigate some deeper backstory.

And considering the bigger/eviler villain in both this and TSR is Eggman, well, no dice.

36 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

If you feel like answering feel free. If you don't that's fine.

What does he do , that gives him unique purpose opposed to everyone else. And why is he doing it? This isn't sarcasm, or me trying to be coy, I genuinely cannot come up with anything that has been presented that makes him unique in that regard.

" Save the world " everyone's doing that, why is he special?

Be a prick who causes extra conflict because antihero.

8 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'm amazed that you think so. 

Assumptions like that just aren't an easy thing for me to make. I've been given no reason to feel comfortable about how this all works but I suppose I could be persuaded if somebody sorts things out. 

Apparently the floating island can pass between the two worlds as well. Just like in Sonic X.

Probably because it's really not too difficult to at least box off in my mind.

There are two worlds--one primarily animal, one primarily human. Okay. sure, why not?

They can travel between each other--will we see how this looks or works? No? Okay then, it's just something that apparently is, but doesn't really matter.

And yes, Sonic X is obviously an existing example of how it can work, so that helps at last a little. This is a series where characters used to hop between dimensions every once in a while.