Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[CertifiedNobody]

4 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The movie definetly eclipses fandom darlings like Unleashed in scope, but Sonic 2's reach shouldn't be understated. That game made Sonic an international success and carried Sega on it's back along with it. There's a reason that, when the franchise was on a downturn in the 2000s, they pivoted hard to imagery from Sonic 2. 'Sonic and Tails vs Eggman' is what comes to mind when a lot of people think of Sonic. It's the most beloved Sonic has ever been. People line up to buy new versions of it on every platform. It's more important than any of the games released after it combined, and I'm counting fandom darling Sonic 3 in that.

Sonic 2 is the reason you had the freedom fighters, Sonic the Comic and the OVA(all...liberal adaptations that still make Sonic and Tails's friendship a focal point.) It's the reason a Sonic movie is even a viable concept. There's a reason the film series is placing a lot of emphasis on Tails in the logo for the second one.

You have a fair point. I don't want fight for this point because the importance of something is difficult to quantify and the movies are far too young to know the lasting impact of them. Regardless, the movies are very high up the list in terms of importance.

[Kuzu]

48 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Sorry but I don't understand what you're arguing here.

But it's just advertising. I'm not saying that Sega doesn't acknowledge or use the team at times, but what I am saying it that in a lot of media, particularly the IDW comics, it's been heavily downplayed, and we never actually see the trio together AS Team Sonic, when both Team Dark and Team Chaotix have been shown off.

What I'm saying is that Knuckles  has been a fixture in the series advertising since forever.

Team Sonic has been "downplayed" because the series has moved on to bigger and better things. Sega have been more interested in exploring new and different concepts rather than just going back to the old stuff, and Knuckles being left behind as a major character is an unfortunate side effect of that. I'm not saying that Sega are never going to ever use "Team Sonic" ever again, but once again, I think you're severely overestimating just how much influence the movie will have over the games. 

 

Team Dark and Team Chaotix are teams consisting of secondary characters; yes even Shadow, as big of a juggernaut he is in the series, is still ultimately a secondary character in the grand scheme of it all. They are not bound by the same rules and standards that Team Sonic, a team consisting of the main character, are bound to. The Chaotix were conceptualized from the ground up as a team, and Sega have literally been trying to downplay Team Dark as well by having Shadow stand out more as a rival to Sonic on his own rather than be apart of his own team. 

 

And as said, there has been much more emphasis on Sonic & Tails as a duo than Team Sonic as a whole, simply because Sonic 2 has the largest influence on the franchise period. As said, "Sonic & Tails vs. Eggman" is practically synonymous with the entire series itself. Like sure, Knuckles might get his 15 minutes of fame back in the spotlight, but I highly doubt it's going to have a major influence on anything long-term.

 

If Sega wanted to utilize Knuckles as a major character again they would just go ahead and do it, a movie isn't going to change that. 

[Zaysho]

58 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

It doesn't matter if there's a valid and canon reason for him not to be there. What matters is that he isn't there. We've gone though the discussion about Knuckles' role and how it's hard to write around it, but compare Knuckles' appearances so far to TSR, Heroes, Sonic X, the Adventure games, and Archie. In those, he's absolutely a main character, here, he's not. Sure, he's not nearly as underutilized as Fang or Mighty, but he's still by far the least utilized main character.

He isn't there because there isn't a need for him to be there at the moment. He didn't show up until the final act of the Metal Virus either, and that's because Sonic and crew brought that conflict to his doorstep. His importance isn't suddenly diminished because they're observing his role. Maybe it means when he shows up it'll have actual meaning or we'll get to explore his home versus all the times he's been there just twiddling his thumbs in the games since Heroes.

58 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

The difference is I'm getting my info from interviews, your argument is that Iizuka's just saying stuff and that it doesn't mean anything because you said so.

If this is the interview you're citing, it also mentions the series' profile rising with the releases of Mania, Forces and TSR--these games (by virtue of them being games in a franchise that's primarily about selling games and creating media to support that goal) were already much bigger deals before the movie was even announced and the hoopla surrounding the redesign and its reception.

There is something to be said about there being synergy in marketing (because we have the skin and the ugly keychain), but that's quite a bit different than the movie spurring the production of a game Sega was probably already looking at after Mania Plus was released, factoring in similar things I mentioned in my post. The movie, like these comics, is a vehicle for the games first and it did its job in making more fans.

I will apologize if I'm getting overly snippy; you're right, I am speculating at the end of the day. But I'm trying to make educated guesses based on timing and I've followed this series long enough to have a vague idea when I read these things. I've followed this series' development most actively since Heroes was announced. Like others have already said, your posts overstate the importance the movies will have in the long term. Knuckles will likely get focus again, he usually does, and Ian is clearly someone who likes the character and can come up with creative things for him when it's called for, but this isn't Archie in the 90s where they drop everything for this kind of thing.

[CertifiedNobody]

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

He isn't there because there isn't a need for him to be there at the moment. He didn't show up until the final act of the Metal Virus either, and that's because Sonic and crew brought that conflict to his doorstep. His importance isn't suddenly diminished because they're observing his role. Maybe it means when he shows up it'll have actual meaning or we'll get to explore his home versus all the times he's been there just twiddling his thumbs in the games since Heroes.

Knuckles' role is absolutely diminished by the comic when he only appears in a few issues. I don't think they're intentionally making him a side character, but when they don't need him for most of the stories they're writing, he isn't a main character anymore.

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

If this is the interview you're citing, it also mentions the series' profile rising with the releases of Mania, Forces and TSR--these games (by virtue of them being games in a franchise that's primarily about selling games and creating media to support that goal) were already much bigger deals before the movie was even announced and the hoopla surrounding the redesign and its reception.

I believe it was a different one that only mentioned Colors, but I'm not going to go back and look for it.

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

Like others have already said, your posts overstate the importance the movies will have in the long term. Knuckles will likely get focus again, he usually does, and Ian is clearly someone who likes the character and can come up with creative things for him when it's called for, but this isn't Archie in the 90s where they drop everything for this kind of thing.

The big issue here is that people thing that I'm saying Sega will make IDW drop every story arc they've been working on and switch the spotlight to Knuckles. What I'm talking about is Sega requesting more emphasis on Team Sonic as the actual main characters of the book. Not replace other characters, not interrupting any arcs, just making a push to lean things closer to what the public thinks of when they hear "Sonic". I've seen similar things happen to tons of other franchises, particularly Transformers.

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

What I'm saying is that Knuckles  has been a fixture in the series advertising since forever.

Team Sonic has been "downplayed" because the series has moved on to bigger and better things. Sega have been more interested in exploring new and different concepts rather than just going back to the old stuff, and Knuckles being left behind as a major character is an unfortunate side effect of that. I'm not saying that Sega are never going to ever use "Team Sonic" ever again, but once again, I think you're severely overestimating just how much influence the movie will have over the games. 

 

Team Dark and Team Chaotix are teams consisting of secondary characters; yes even Shadow, as big of a juggernaut he is in the series, is still ultimately a secondary character in the grand scheme of it all. They are not bound by the same rules and standards that Team Sonic, a team consisting of the main character, are bound to. The Chaotix were conceptualized from the ground up as a team, and Sega have literally been trying to downplay Team Dark as well by having Shadow stand out more as a rival to Sonic on his own rather than be apart of his own team. 

 

And as said, there has been much more emphasis on Sonic & Tails as a duo than Team Sonic as a whole, simply because Sonic 2 has the largest influence on the franchise period. As said, "Sonic & Tails vs. Eggman" is practically synonymous with the entire series itself. Like sure, Knuckles might get his 15 minutes of fame back in the spotlight, but I highly doubt it's going to have a major influence on anything long-term.

 

If Sega wanted to utilize Knuckles as a major character again they would just go ahead and do it, a movie isn't going to change that. 

Sure, if Sega wanted to, they could, but there's no push for them to. There's been no reason to. Yeah, things have been "Sonic And Tails Vs Eggman" But the movie is likely going to redefine that. Knuckles has been pushed to the side a little because of Sonic 2, yes, but the coming movie is going to reintroduce him to pop culture. The movies are trying to sell him as Sonic's rival who teams up with him for the greater good. These hollywood-ized portrayals of characters stick around in peoples' minds. The Guardians Of The Galaxy were completely changed by their MCU movie. Bumblebee had fallen into obscurity prior to the 2007 Transformers movie, and after that he became a mainstay in nearly every subsequent movie, cartoon, or comic. Yeah, sure, these are different, but you shouldn't dismiss the impact a movie can have.

[Kazhnuz]

The movie will have an impact, but more on that it'll give them a flux of new player/reader. Knuckles changing or not will certainly be in flux, and we already have some things that might affect Knux appearing or not more often (namely having a bunch of fans that want him more). It's too soon to really speculate on the actual impact these will have in-stories, especially as the same year, a new game will appear and certainly have impacts too, and a new series will certainly have its own share of fans.

The marketing impact is easier to see, as it's already here : market Sonic & Tails a lot, more games adapted to the kids that'll see the movies, do more tie-in than before in order to ride from the movie success.

But the impact in-story have more stuff that can influence it (Sonic Team's will, IDW's will, writers' will, fan feedback, other side-media), and even if the movie will be huge success, how all those work with each other will certainly makes things more complex. Especially if the subject is "Knuckles" where there already hare a lot of discussion about him.

[MetalSkulkBane]

9 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Uhm... actually, just a couple of points:

1. @Kaotic Kanine didn't say that, his quote was: "-Both are highly energetic and passionate girls with the frequent tendency to glomp others (much to their discomfort), running about enthusiastically, and rousing spirits.". Now, if you think this description fit Amy, please feel free to do it. Just don't change it to "exited and emotional civilian, introduced through Sonic to amazing world of adventures", which is a far more fitting description for Amy but it's so bland that it could apply to... pretty much to half of the cast  (and that's why you had to add "willing to break personal space" like it was a character trait).

2. The @Kaotic Kanine quote I answered that way was: "then you were not around in the Adventure Era and you're wrong". It was a random statement without any beef behind it. Of course I answered the same way. But I can elaborate why I think he was biased if you want.

Fine, so maybe you both could argue better. I'm not going a have lengthy discussion in name of person who might already stopped caring. But I will just underline few main similarities between Amy and Tangle.

- Psychical contact.
Amy obviously hugs Sonic a lot. And in early days she also  pulled Silver, Elise towards adventure, encouraging them towards finding "iblis trigger"/ escaping from Eggman. Or even pulling Knuckles out of the way in SA2. Similarly Tangle shows tendency to go for hugs, she has a giant tail and she will use it. Learning to respect Whisper boundaries was important step for her.
(And this psychical contact tendency is symptom of being super friendly, energetic and outward.)
Name one major Sonic character that is so psychical, especially towards people who aren't that familiar with them. Cream is too polite to be attack personal space that way. Sonic is too cool. Tails a little shy. Etc

- Civilian
Amy in CD was not a super hero. She was little girl that went on adventure. Even in SA1 her introduction is shopping. In that game she barely knows how to fight and grows into someone who can stand on her own. And in latter games Sonic and Tails still don't want to take her on adventures, because they don't see her on equal footing.  Unleashed she doesn't join Sonic on quest like Tails, she stays in the city.
Tails was always a two-tailed freak, always a genius, always a tinkerer, even before becoming hero sidekick. And even that, from very start of Sonic 2 he is already a her sidekick. Knuckles is guardian, Silver time traveler, Chaotix detectives. Only team Rose are "civilians" who just joined world of adventure. Except Big never "joined" this world, he went back to fishing. And Cream one day will be great heroine, but now is a little girl who hates violence.
And Tangle spelled it out in her own mini: she's been a local heroine/troublemaker (?) who just now learned the fun of grand adventure. And they both fell in love in adventure, one in concept, other in person.

[Red Hot Jack]

I don't think it's too out there to speculate Knuckles will appear in IDW following movie 2, it's a basic prediction. Not right now though, we already know where the focus of the current story is, and who the protagonists are. Knuckles will likely show up in the next saga anyway, regardless of the movie, because he's been absent for a while, so chances are big.

The movies definitely have a big impact on Sonic in general, I agree, otherwise we wouldn't have the movie skins, but they are optional, SEGA still wants to pursue their own thing. There will be tie-ins, of course, and references to the movies, but I don't think everything will 100% change, that's not possible.

Movies are still the best thing to have happened since, say, Sonic Generations and Mania.

[SkyHorizon]

6 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Fine, so maybe you both could argue better. I'm not going a have lengthy discussion in name of person who might already stopped caring. But I will just underline few main similarities between Amy and Tangle.

- Psychical contact.
Amy obviously hugs Sonic a lot. And in early days she also  pulled Silver, Elise towards adventure, encouraging them towards finding "iblis trigger"/ escaping from Eggman. Or even pulling Knuckles out of the way in SA2. Similarly Tangle shows tendency to go for hugs, she has a giant tail and she will use it. Learning to respect Whisper boundaries was important step for her.
(And this psychical contact tendency is symptom of being super friendly, energetic and outward.)
Name one major Sonic character that is so psychical, especially towards people who aren't that familiar with them. Cream is too polite to be attack personal space that way. Sonic is too cool. Tails a little shy. Etc

- Civilian
Amy in CD was not a super hero. She was little girl that went on adventure. Even in SA1 her introduction is shopping. In that game she barely knows how to fight and grows into someone who can stand on her own. And in latter games Sonic and Tails still don't want to take her on adventures, because they don't see her on equal footing.  Unleashed she doesn't join Sonic on quest like Tails, she stays in the city.
Tails was always a two-tailed freak, always a genius, always a tinkerer, even before becoming hero sidekick. And even that, from very start of Sonic 2 he is already a her sidekick. Knuckles is guardian, Silver time traveler, Chaotix detectives. Only team Rose are "civilians" who just joined world of adventure. Except Big never "joined" this world, he went back to fishing. And Cream one day will be great heroine, but now is a little girl who hates violence.
And Tangle spelled it out in her own mini: she's been a local heroine/troublemaker (?) who just now learned the fun of grand adventure. And they both fell in love in adventure, one in concept, other in person.

You got a point there, I see why you brought the "physical contact" one. Another couple of points, though:

1. I don't remember Amy ever hugging someone who isn't Sonic (or that she believes is Sonic). But I could remember it wrong, what scenes were you thinking to?

2. The "civilian becoming adventurer" point is interesting and really true, I admit I never thought about it. But you have to admit that SEGA never did much with it aside from SA1. In my opinion it's interesting that we could explore a little bit of this side with Tangle, especially considering that Amy never really got the occasion (aside from SA1).

Also, you gotta admit that by saying "Chaotix are detectives" you are opening yourself up to "then, by your logic, Espio is a clone of Vector". Like saying: "Shadow is a clone of Sonic because he is a male hedgehog" or "Tails is a clone of Sonic because they both love adventuring". It's an exaggeration just to show my point, of course, I know you're not saying that. What I'm trying to say is that it's not like that two people are identical just because they have something in common.

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, SkyHorizon said:

You got a point there, I see why you brought the "physical contact" one. Another couple of points, though:

1. I don't remember Amy ever hugging someone who isn't Sonic (or that she believes is Sonic). But I could remember it wrong, what scenes were you thinking to?

2. The "civilian becoming adventurer" point is interesting and really true, I admit I never thought about it. But you have to admit that SEGA never did much with it aside from SA1. In my opinion it's interesting that we could explore a little bit of this side with Tangle, especially considering that Amy never really got the occasion (aside from SA1).

Also, you gotta admit that by saying "Chaotix are detectives" you are opening yourself up to "then, by your logic, Espio is a clone of Vector". Like saying: "Shadow is a clone of Sonic because he is a male hedgehog" or "Tails is a clone of Sonic because they both love adventuring". It's an exaggeration just to show my point, of course, I know you're not saying that. What I'm trying to say is that it's not like that two people are identical just because they have something in common.

1 Hugging only Sonic-looka a likes. But check her first interaction with Silver. Even after realization he's not Sonic, she still very touchy. It's by no means identical to Tangle, but it is slightly similar. She's positive, in his face, instantly ready to help, even when Silver himself isn't looking for help. It gives similar vibe to Tangle wanting to help Whisper with Mimic.

2 Fair enough. Vector and Espio aren't identical, but they both detectives for hire.
Tangle and Amy aren't identical, but they both "regular" girls (with giant hammer/tail) introduces to world adventure.

[SkyHorizon]

53 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

1 Hugging only Sonic-looka a likes. But check her first interaction with Silver. Even after realization he's not Sonic, she still very touchy. It's by no means identical to Tangle, but it is slightly similar. She's positive, in his face, instantly ready to help, even when Silver himself isn't looking for help. It gives similar vibe to Tangle wanting to help Whisper with Mimic.

2 Fair enough. Vector and Espio aren't identical, but they both detectives for hire.
Tangle and Amy aren't identical, but they both "regular" girls (with giant hammer/tail) introduces to world adventure.

I guess we can agree to that: in the end Amy and Tangle are characters who share some common traits, there's no denying that.

[DabigRG]

This looks like it's about to become a long time fans vs casual newcomers discussion and I'm not sure that's a good sign.

16 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

I don't think that Surge is a "late addition", as both Surge/Starline/Kit where planified together, and I would be surprised that they decide to add Kit without Surge after both being pushed to later (especially as IIRC Flynn teased both together when he started talking about them). I think it's more a result that the teasing/construction was done on arc made by two different writers.

Or maybe Starline getting data/dna from Sonic was seen as redundant/not useful enough to affect as much the rythm or another in story reason.

True

13 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

The second movie probably wouldn't have that much impact on the comics.  For many years, SEGA never really implemented anything from other media into the games.  The closest they implemented was having the same voice actors from Sonic X come in and voice the characters in the games.  

And that happened because Sega was looking to succeed Deem Bristow and realized they could bring in the whole cast for some cross brand consistency.

12 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Even though he hasn't appeared in the main comic in over a year?

That's partly because there simply wasn't a need for him in any of the Year 3 stories thus far.

12 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

 

 

I wasn't expecting a massive shift. I was expecting greater emphasis on Tails, Knuckles, and their dynamic with Sonic given the massive emphasis it'll have in the movies.

 

 

So what you're saying is Knuckles will be a significant part of Rangers after Forces and now the movie sequels tested the waters? 

You'd better be right about this.

11 hours ago, Kuzu said:

 

 

Even the dynamic of Team Sonic isn't all that underutilized. As I said, they were literally just in Team Sonic racing, and Sega uses that iconography on their products.

 

You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think the entire franchise is just gonna start downplaying every other character and drop plotlines to focus on Team Sonic.

To be a little fair, the games hasn't exactly had the most consistent or even convicted direction for a while. Making Knuckles truly important is just one step away from the baseline we've been working with.

10 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

 

But it's just advertising. I'm not saying that Sega doesn't acknowledge or use the team at times, but what I am saying it that in a lot of media, particularly the IDW comics, it's been heavily downplayed, and we never actually see the trio together AS Team Sonic, when both Team Dark and Team Chaotix have been shown off.

 

That's partially because Team Sonic was probably the one with the least put into their dynamic narratively from the getgo. Remember that Knuckles was along for the ride mainly to sorta show up Sonic and he & Tails never really had the most noticeable dynamic.

Of course they wouldn't come together in the comic much when there's been an effort to rerail Knuckles for years and he seldom even shows up in the same room as Tails.

10 hours ago, Mauro Fonseca said:

 

 

Also this is a bit of a cold conversation now but I went to sleep before saying this, but when people were talking about Surge being more popular than Kit or whatever:

While obviously I think part of it is just that Surge's an extravert and very clearly action active character who's fun to draw running about and sparking and in action poses, plus the delinquent-esque attitude and attire, while Kit's demure-er and more quiet going by what you guys have to work from so far, I think part of it also falls simply on this:

Surge is my first big character design assignment on this franchise. As said before, she was co-designed with Evan just like how I co-designed Kit (and obviously Sega and IDW editorial and Ian had input), but the final Surge design and the general direction beyond Ian's initial pitch is mine. Counter that, Kit's the same but for Evan.

Surge obviously appeals a lot to me as a character design, having a lot of traits that people pointed out to me I reuse a LOT; I like Kit too but don't have as direct a connection (though odds are if I ever get to draw a story with him I'll grow more attached, I tend to do that to characters I have to draw repeatedly).

As a result, as soon as she was public, I talked about her more. I posted doodles, I posted an influence sheet, a couple gifs. This coupled with her very fun-to-draw big action energy having caused a few other IDW artists doodling her meant there was more behind-the-scenes and pseudo-official material of her to start with for the public audience.

Evan on the other hand is more mature with this, more experienced. Kit's a design she loved doing but is also not the first time she designs a big important character for this franchise. So she didn't feel the need to go and speak so openly about him. There's no big twitter thread about her influences in designing Kit, or concept art doodles, or gifs explaining his power. She's saving all that stuff for whenever the comic's out and whenever IDW Marketing posts the character model sheets, I'm sure.

So, entirely unintentionally, I feel we inadvertently caused this disparity in reception, somewhat. I immediately put nearly all my cards on the table and went "look, Surge!". Evan's holding her cards back, so people don't know what to make of Kit as well yet.

Luckily I think things'll balance out as soon as Imposter Syndrome starts coming out, as you guys will get a good view of both characters and their fun dynamic.

Okay, thank you, that's information I didn't really have before.

Like I seem to recall her name coming up, but assumed it was another "Evan put this in, Mauro put that in, and Sonic Team said Blend."

But Kit is secondarily the work of the current head writer of the book, then of course we've seen little to nothing from him!

[CertifiedNobody]

42 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

So what you're saying is Knuckles will be a significant part of Rangers after Forces and now the movie sequels tested the waters? 

You'd better be right about this.

Well it's certainly possible that he'll be in Rangers. He gameplay lends itself well to open worlds and exploration, and the game is about exploring ancient ruins. With Sega having been working alongside the movie crew, they could easily plan for Rangers to include Team Sonic long before the crew started filming.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

17 hours ago, Silvereyes said:

Could be interesting if Kit was made out to be true neutral. Doesn't care about Sonic or Eggman or Starline, doesn't care about good or evil, just wants to be left alone and do his own thing. Surge is the psychopath, Kit is the sociopath.

This could be it. Surge the crazy wild one and Kit the eerily quite one.

[Zaysho]

10 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Knuckles' role is absolutely diminished by the comic when he only appears in a few issues. I don't think they're intentionally making him a side character, but when they don't need him for most of the stories they're writing, he isn't a main character anymore.

Or he was never actually a main character but rather an important side character whose role they are respecting. This is a long form, ongoing narrative and characters will shift in and out of focus all the time. Knuckles not being there right now doesn't suddenly make him less important. Shadow only shows up for a few issues too, that doesn't dent his popularity (no matter how much Shadow fanboys want to deny this).

10 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I believe it was a different one that only mentioned Colors, but I'm not going to go back and look for it.

So is it because you said so? Just checking.

10 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

The big issue here is that people thing that I'm saying Sega will make IDW drop every story arc they've been working on and switch the spotlight to Knuckles. What I'm talking about is Sega requesting more emphasis on Team Sonic as the actual main characters of the book. Not replace other characters, not interrupting any arcs, just making a push to lean things closer to what the public thinks of when they hear "Sonic". I've seen similar things happen to tons of other franchises, particularly Transformers.

I don't think you actually believe they're going to throw out storylines just for Team Sonic; I even read other posts that have responded to you and that wasn't really what anyone's said. The issue is that you have it backwards.

The movie will reflect what the public thinks of when they hear "Sonic." That includes stupid shit like "Gotta go fast" and Sanic jokes (things either in the trailer or the movie). That includes Tails and Knuckles who have been a part of the series' marketing and image for so long, shown together with Sonic as recently as the last four years of the games. Tails being in the movie's ending, and Knuckles being hinted at in the first movie's opening five minutes just by showing his clan with a familiar silhouette and design that would make even the most casual observer go "hey it's that the red guy from the games."

You are right; there are enough instances of movies doing this for other franchises, like the MCU. But there's no reason to believe that Sonic will do that. Especially when it's a thing Sega doesn't need help doing on their own, especially when they already have brand partners like IDW promoting the movie more directly with an actual mini-series.

[Cake]

Without diving back through about 943 pages of content to check, I'm just curious, is anyone else of the opinion that the Sonic IDW series has some of the best characterization in recent memory for these characters? What a fun read it's been, with some fantastic new character introductions like Tangle and Whisper among others. How they managed to springboard so successfully off of the (lack of) story Sonic Forces provided is nothing short of a miracle. I still kinda can't believe how intense things like the Metal Virus arc got, either. It'd be nice to see that kind of characterization and story stakes in other Sonic media too.

[MetalSkulkBane]

3 hours ago, Cake said:

Without diving back through about 943 pages of content to check, I'm just curious, is anyone else of the opinion that the Sonic IDW series has some of the best characterization in recent memory for these characters?

It's fairly common opinion that Ian Flynn writes some of the best versions of the Sonic Cast, IDW or Archie (especially Reboot. Preboot had some early days baggage). Only problems were with Shadow (Sega mandates) and arguably with Amy (in process of addressing).

I know he had some hate groups, but I haven't heard from them in years and I would be delighted to keep not checking on them.

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 hours ago, Cake said:

Without diving back through about 943 pages of content to check, I'm just curious, is anyone else of the opinion that the Sonic IDW series has some of the best characterization in recent memory for these characters? What a fun read it's been, with some fantastic new character introductions like Tangle and Whisper among others. How they managed to springboard so successfully off of the (lack of) story Sonic Forces provided is nothing short of a miracle. I still kinda can't believe how intense things like the Metal Virus arc got, either. It'd be nice to see that kind of characterization and story stakes in other Sonic media too.

I also think that IDW Sonic had some of the best characterizations as well. I just started reading the series and so far, it knew how to characterize the characters without making them too generic.  Also, despite the many mandates that SEGA has over the comics (Shadow's characterization, the fact that certain characters can't be used in the modern stories like Mighty and Ray), the comics are still well written for the most part.  The only problem I have with the series so far is that compared to the Archie Comics, it seems to play everything too safe (meaning that they won't go to places that the Archie Comics did, like having a darker and edgier storytelling at times).  The closest arc that did get to darker and edgier territory was the Metal Virus arc, which was surprisingly dark.  Although, I'm not saying that the whole comic should be dark as I like it when we have a lot of light hearted stories.  But, it would be nice for the comic series to start taking more risks with the narrative at times.

[SkyHorizon]

26 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

The only problem I have with the series so far is that compared to the Archie Comics, it seems to play everything too safe (meaning that they won't go to places that the Archie Comics did, like having a darker and edgier storytelling at times).  The closest arc that did get to darker and edgier territory was the Metal Virus arc, which was surprisingly dark. 

Didn't this just contradict your whole point? The Metal Virus was, like, more than ONE THIRD of the whole IDW run, I'd say the comic has been plenty dark until now...

That said, I agree with the "play safe" part, Archie surely was more... "brave" on that, with both good and bad things coming from that attitude

[Rabbitearsblog]

9 minutes ago, SkyHorizon said:

Didn't this just contradict your whole point? The Metal Virus was, like, more than ONE THIRD of the whole IDW run, I'd say the comic has been plenty dark until now...

That said, I agree with the "play safe" part, Archie surely was more... "brave" on that, with both good and bad things coming from that attitude

Oh I meant like storylines that dealt with heavy issues, like there was this one story line from the Knuckles series over at Archie where Charmy's friend died of drug overdose or the story line where Sonic and Tails were fighting each other because of Tails' father trying to usurp the Kingdom and this clashed with how Sonic and Tails felt about the situation.  Or the time where Eggman put a lot of people inside his Egg grapes, that started sucking out the life out of the victims.  Dark storylines like that.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Issue 46 is out. It's... fine.

From very first pages have mysterious good badnik, cameo from Surge and Tenec, and surprisingly not horrifying image of Belle's burned hand.(which only now I'm realizing, actually looks a lot like Metal Sonic but softer. Cute detail)

Other than that we have a lot of dealing with fire. For some reason I never cared for "Hero VS natural disaster scenario" It lacks the.. pazzaz I guess.

One highlight is Amy scene. I talked before that Amy has a lot of screen time, but little "awesome moments". On reflection I think ratio blinded me a little. She has less cool moments than Tails, who also appears a lot. But if you compare her to Rouge, Chaotix or even Knuckles, she's mostly fine.
Buuuuut, I think we can all agree that Metal Virus wasn't too kind to her. Most of the cast got to 'die' in awesome way (Vector, Tangle) or kick some Zeti Ass (Cream, Silver). Amy didn't really got neither (Tails deserves all credits for Zomom), most of her time was about worrying and watching as everything crumbles. So I'm glad seeing her recover in post-apocalypse world.

While humble in scope, I feel like this is one of her finest moments in IDW. She's shows strength, kindness, leadership, all while being pretty adorable. And it's not even "Her moment", she's giving spotlight to Jewel. Even artworks seems to peak on those few pages. So yeah, point for you Stanley.

And, spoilers I guess

Spoiler

Funny clown nose....

Okay, reactions from both gals are pretty hilarious.

 

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

  Dark storylines like that.

Well, I think that is to be expected. Even back in his Archie days, Ian made sure Eggman himself was the engine or root cause of most of the darker story-lines, but you have to remember that the Eggman as we know it was not around for IDW year 1. He was stuck as Mr. Tinker.

But, the second he was back onto his feet, the comics went right off the deep end in terms of slanting the tone to the darker stories. He rolled out the Metal Virus and the rest is history.

 

I mean, he's only been around for a little more than half the IDW run, but Eggy is racking up some serious points on his Pure-Evil business account.

 

-We learned that he put out a legit hit on the Diamond Cutters. Killed em off. Scarred Whisper for life.

-Live tested the metal virus on little animals.

-went out of his way to make sure the first people who fell victim to his latest master plan were the citizens of the very same village that took him in and showed him mercy as Tinker. Total dick move.

-Shoved Amy into a Zombot (possibly an even bigger dick move) effectively killing her.

 

I'd say that with Eggman back to his old self, the darker tones are more or less on par with where we left off with on Archie.

 

2 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I think we can all agree that Metal Virus wasn't too kind to her. Most of the cast got to 'die' in awesome way (Vector, Tangle) or kick some Zeti Ass (Cream, Silver). Amy didn't really got neither (Tails deserves all credits for Zomom), most of her time was about worrying and watching as everything crumbles. So I'm glad seeing her recover in post-apocalypse world.

That's not entirely true. Amy had a big hero moment saving Cream at Vanilla's request in an incredibly hard spot. She was also the one who was there to hold Whisper back, which is the kind of emotional support spot she shines in.

and while she didn't get to "die" in spectacular fashion, I would argue that her death scene was probably one of the most important. She defended Eggman only to get stabbed in the back. Thats a big time character moment for both of them. I think people just overlook it because it happened so fast. 

[Kuzu]

I think its easy for people to overlook Amy's moments since they're generally undercut by the events surrounding them just being more important.

This issue, she's the central focus and nobody like Sonic or Shadow are here to steal her thunder, so she's finally able to stand on her own.

 

Its honestly something she's deserved for a long time now.

[StaticMania]

Quote

Its honestly something she's deserved for a long time now.

I'm glad this is a sentiment that exists about Amy Rose the hedgehog.

A friendly motobug is just what the series needed.

[CertifiedNobody]

5 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I know he had some hate groups, but I haven't heard from them in years and I would be delighted to keep not checking on them.

What did hate groups even get mad about? I can understand not liking his style or preferring some of the more experimental and dark older archie stuff, but that's not enough to make a hate group.

[Sega DogTagz]

4 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

What did hate groups even get mad about? I can understand not liking his style or preferring some of the more experimental and dark older archie stuff, but that's not enough to make a hate group.

Throw rationality out of the window on the internet. People will go to pieces over anything and everything. Hate groups can form for any number of reasons from perceived favoritism/hatred of certain characters or certain plot lines not resolving in a specific way.

Some of the more level headed types will usually point to rushed act IV resolutions as a hallmark of Ian's style, but its all a matter of opinion and you cant please everyone. Its actually a small miracle that Ian is as well regarded as he is considering how much he has to balance for so long. Shoot, Ian might be able to make a case to fall into a tier right below Hesse and Whitehead in terms of fandom appreciation.