Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[KoDaiko]

1 hour ago, SatAMhog said:

I don't think Sally's sexual preferences are a subject appropriate for a children's comic IMO.  It's good for fan fiction but the official stuff should never go down that road.  Sonic's not about that stuff.

Eh it could work if done right. Same goes for any topics considered inappropriate, really. The problem is more how it should be executed rather than if they should.

40 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Gotta love nobody ever says that when it's about straight relationships. 

it depends on where you look. In certain places lgbt is the norm while straight is considered icky or boring. Mostly when it's about female characters for some reason.

 

[DabigRG]

Looking back, I noticed you used to term SEXUAL preferences. So in that regard, yeah, I can understand some obfuscation. Just a bit.

[All Might The Armadillo]

I think what he means is that its just not kid friendly enough. Its like Nintendo saying Mario gets a divorce, and a kid ends up seeing it. Which mario is aimed at kids. Or maybe Im wrong.

[VO.SUPER]

23 minutes ago, All Might The Armadillo said:

I think what he means is that its just not kid friendly enough. Its like Nintendo saying Mario gets a divorce, and a kid ends up seeing it. Which mario is aimed at kids. Or maybe Im wrong.

If that's the case, Rouge's playful teasing of Knuckles falls under that kind of maturity, or Bunnie and Anthoine's entire everything.

[StaticMania]

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I think what he means is that its just not kid friendly enough.

It being kid-friendly doesn't matter...

Kids don't care about this stuff and the point is that they shouldn't, it exists...and shouldn't be made a big deal.

What you want is for kids to see it and accept it as their norm, making a fuss about it does the exact opposite of that.

[Diogenes]

IDW Sonic already put a character's sexual preference front-and-center in the second issue. If this children's comic can have Amy swooning hard over Sonic it can handle a character being bi.

[Wraith]

32 minutes ago, All Might The Armadillo said:

I think what he means is that its just not kid friendly enough. Its like Nintendo saying Mario gets a divorce, and a kid ends up seeing it. Which mario is aimed at kids. Or maybe Im wrong.

Mario did propose at the end of the last game. 

[StaticMania]

That proposal was so forceful she turned him down.

Can children handle that but on a bigger scale?

[All Might The Armadillo]

47 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Mario did propose at the end of the last game. 

I learn something new every day.

[KoDaiko]

We have modern cartoon like Steven Universe that goes over mature topics. It's not new either, I remember old cartoons and animes having pretty dark or adult themes. Also this depends on the environment, but it shouldn't be an entirely new concept for them in this day and age. 

The question is whether SEGA would want that, the parents would be okay with it, and Ian has the ability to portray it well.

[StaticMania]

Parents are chill, yo.

Don't think about them.

[Your Vest Friend]

Unfortunately, there are parents that aren't chill about it, such as cases where their child gets outed as LGBT against their (the child's) will and they end up physically assaulting and/or disowning them.

But I say fuck em.

[KoDaiko]

Unfortunately there are many parents who control what their child can consume. They can get quite nasty and force change if there’s enough of them.

But yeah kids are mostly open minded and tolerant. Unless they're raised in a bad environment, they'd probably be chill about it.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, KoDaiko said:

 

The question is whether SEGA would want that, the parents would be okay with it, and Ian has the ability to portray it well.

I don't think sega would care much.

To be clear this isn't to suggest sega or sonic team or whoever is incharge of sonic's creative direction is "woke" in regards to that sort of thing. In fact I'm mildly suspicious of the opposite. Along with how they have just treated the women in sonic for the longest ( and even now when its written by sonic team)they have never shown anything close that. The LGBTQ post was made on sega's hardlight's twitter not the official sonic twitter.

I want to be clear I don't think the people in charge of the creative sonic the hedgehog creative decisions are some bastion of inclusivity.They are at the end of the day a corporation and in regards to this issue of representation have made 0 strides.

All that said I think they still wouldn't care. Sally is a character who if brought back would not be prominent whatsoever and would effectively be a different character. Her being bisexual in the background of this comic focusing on more game characters is something I don't think they would care about because she's not important to them really. So I don't think sega would stop anyone at all, but maybe I'm wrong

[thumbs13]

That's a pretty big point too. Sally's not a game character, and from everything we've heard, they're way more lax with non-game characters in general. Sega probably won't introduce an lgbt character in the games any time soon, but one of them appearing in the comic, and nowhere else? That's way easier to buy happening.  

[MetalSkulkBane]

As much as I'm in favor of LGBT, I'm not big fan or retconing old character into gay/bisexual. Yes. it's realistic that gay person starts hetero before they "find them self" but it still feels like messing with core of character just to send your own agenda.

 

With that said I would have no problem if Flynn said that Tangle or Whisper are lesbians. His characters, his right to do so.

On 4/4/2020 at 5:17 AM, All Might The Armadillo said:

 Its like Nintendo saying Mario gets a divorce, and a kid ends up seeing it. Which mario is aimed at kids. Or maybe I'm wrong.

Isn't Bowser Jr raised by single father (implying child abandonment, divorce or one-time standing), while Birdo is transexual?

[DabigRG]

9 hours ago, All Might The Armadillo said:

I think what he means is that its just not kid friendly enough. Its like Nintendo saying Mario gets a divorce, and a kid ends up seeing it. Which mario is aimed at kids. Or maybe Im wrong.

That's the joke lol

[All Might The Armadillo]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

As much as I'm in favor of LGBT, I'm not big fan or retconing old character into gay/bisexual. Yes. it's realistic that gay person starts hetero before they "find them self" but it still feels like messing with core of character just to send your own agenda.

 

With that said I would have no problem if FLynn said that Tangle or Whisper are lesbians. His characters, his right to do so.

Isn't Bowser Jr raised by single father (implying child abandonment, divorce or one-time standing), while Birdo is transexual?

I dont think your everyday Mario loving 7 year old knows what transexual is though

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

As much as I'm in favor of LGBT, I'm not big fan or retconing old character into gay/bisexual. Yes. it's realistic that gay person starts hetero before they "find them self" but it still feels like messing with core of character just to send your own agenda.

Being strait isnt core to any of the characters except like specifically amy, and even then her crush on sonic doesn't require her being heterosexual. If sonic was gay tomorrow it wouldn't change much.

And "LGBTQ people exist" isn't an agenda,  it's just a thing. A group of people who arent represented much in media getting more reprisentation.

A character from an old ass cartoon no one cares about being bisexual in the background is the least "pushing an agenda" shit ever. It's fine, why do you even care. Being strait is core to litterally no sonic character. It assumed by you. And why that is, is something you need to ask yourself

[Big Panda]

23 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Is that the second episode with Kureeji Lea? I got through part of and have to pick it back up.

 

Speaking of whom, did I even share her overall outline of Cassia and Clove's arc?

Lines up with IDW being "inspired by" the game's.

It also lines up with my personal mindset that it’s best to approach this series as if you were picking up the original Archie continuity late into its life: it can be said that a lot of the comics past events were also “inspired by” the games.

[Zaysho]

6 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

As much as I'm in favor of LGBT, I'm not big fan or retconing old character into gay/bisexual. Yes. it's realistic that gay person starts hetero before they "find them self" but it still feels like messing with core of character just to send your own agenda.

You have to bear in mind that Sally herself was not the same character from the previous continuity, never mind she was a character that Sega had divested themselves from as soon as the DiC show ended. It's not really a retcon when it's a completely different continuity and characterization especially when they were given a memo that she and Sonic as a pair were off-limits. It's less pushing an agenda than it is taking it to a logical step and developing a character that effectively became a blank slate.

[Big Panda]

Making a previously established hetero character into a bisexual isn’t nearly as intrusive as making them gay.

You could, for instance, say that Sally was always bi, even pre-SGW, and it wouldn’t contradict anything we’ve seen up to that point (Sally was seen to be very much interested in guys, but there’s no hard evidence that rules out the possibility of her being interested in girls also).

[StaticMania]

7 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Isn't Bowser Jr raised by single father (implying child abandonment, divorce or one-time standing)

Who's to say Bowser didn't lay Bowser Jr's egg himself?

Outside of Mother Miyamoto of course.

[SatAMhog]

20 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Why not.

She likes boys and girls. Amy gets to like a boy. Rouge likes two boys. Why cant she like a boy and a girl. How is that not appropriate? You can suggest sonic isnt about romance,  but even then they have characters clearly smitten for others.

It's the wording...having Sally say that she prefers to be in a sexual relationship with a boy or girl potentially leads to other adult scenarios and parents(for the majority) don't want their little boys or girls seeing their "funny little animal characters" talking about what is considered adult topics like sexuality or who a characters prefers "to bang".  Sure, we have characters like Rouge The Bat who flaunts her "assets"(not to an absurd degree mind you) to her own advantage but that's part of her character.  She's a trickster whose real love is jewelry.  She just uses her youth and good looks to her advantage and happens to think Knuckles is all right by the end of Sonic Adventure 2.   HOWEVER, you'll notice they censored her suit down the line so it didn't so obviously show off her chest and no other Sonic girl has really had an exaggerated chest like her's?  None of the characters in the Sonic  games universe are in relationships.  They've hinted at it of course(Sonic and Blaze in the first Rush game.  Sonic "always glad to see you" reference in IDW Sonic#4.  Knuckles and Rouge in Adventure 2.   Amy's fangasm for Sonic in every other Sonic game known to man.  The most SERIOUS relationship was Tails and Cosmo in Sonic X which was done exceptionally well in the Japanese and French dubs).  However, the games and comics nowadays have gone for more of an action direction...the characters aren't in serious relationships other than what's been established.   If Tangle and Whisper are hinted at to be something more, than that's fine.  Whisper is dealing with the loss of her friends and has survivor's guilt and with Tangle's roboticization, she's going to cling to her more than ever in upcoming books once the whole virus(in book and in reality funnily enough) scenario is over.

I'm not against it personally, but honestly I don't see it happening anytime soon.  We live in a society where "being straight" is the norm and thus being in what's considered a "normal relationship" between a boy and girl is not seen as touchy.  Being gay or lesbian however is...you can see hints of it in mainstream family movies but for the most part, they're in the background and not really the main focus of Marvel movies.  Honestly, DISNEY Marvel just uses it to say "hey look we put a diverse "X" in our movie.  Give us your money." to fill a quota like any business does.  However, Sonic is not like that and never has been.  Sonic's about saving the day and living by your own way...you notice Sonic goes out of his way to avoid Amy.  He's "the cool dude with the tude" and "DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T".   A good example of that is the Sonic movie...we see a Sonic who is raised alone and just wants a stable relationship...basic human interaction with...SOMEONE!   However, he isn't shown thinking about "hmm James Marsden looks hot today".  He wanted a replacement for Owl Mom and ultimately, he got it in the end with James Marsden and the other lady(sorry I'm not familiar with her name) and got to be a hero on top of it.   Sally discovering her sexuality is better off in adult fan fiction...that's where it will flourish the best. 

I apologize for the wall of text.  I do hope this provides some context for my reasoning, however.  Thanks. 

 

[SBR2]

2 hours ago, Big Panda said:

Making a previously established hetero character into a bisexual isn’t nearly as intrusive as making them gay.

You could, for instance, say that Sally was always bi, even pre-SGW, and it wouldn’t contradict anything we’ve seen up to that point (Sally was seen to be very much interested in guys, but there’s no hard evidence that rules out the possibility of her being interested in girls also).

This. Honestly to me it's just new information about the character. 

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It's the wording...having Sally say that she prefers to be in a sexual relationship with a boy or girl potentially leads to other adult scenarios

...What? Saying she's Bi doesn't necessarily mean saying she's in a sexual relationship. No more than being Heterosexual automatically means the relationship is sexual.