Sonic the Hedgehog IDW #63: Reader Reaction & Review

[Danj86]

8 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

With that said if we're willing to cut family ties between Eggman and Gerald (not worth it, but indulge that scenario for a second) I think Shadow's story would work fine with Maria and everyone as mobians.

Oof! That's a brutal stipulation as it effectively removes a much loved scene which humanizes Eggman. But then...Gerald doesn't have to be related to Maria to be driven crazy by her murder.

But the point is to indulge the idea so, okay. Hmm...

Some (including myself.) do theorize that since evidence suggests Gerald studied Echidna culture, he very likely came across the mural of the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles which inspired Shadow's design. Making everybody mobians would remove that aspect completely as Shadow would just look like everyone else. Though I am working more with head canon as Shadow being designed after that mural has never been confirmed, to my knowledge.

Something else that would be lost is only something I thought about because Frontiers exists. Having Maria related to Eggman opens the door for us to learn more about what fuels his desires. Eggman being jealous of Maria was a very minor thing, but still interesting (To me at least.) and if Sega allowed it, more stories and relationships from Eggman's past could be explored to further help shape who he became.

The Movie did that to a degree and I would love for the games to explore this too. They don't necessarily need Maria as an excuse to explore those kinds of things, but for the sake of this discussion, it is something that would have to be approached differently if the series remained with mobians only.

Side note: While mobians could indeed replace the human roles in Adventure 1, 2, 06 & Unleashed. Foolish events like shutting down an experiment and murdering all involved or trying to harness the power of a god only to get killed as a result are just...

Perfect! roles for humans. We're always screwing things up. lol

[MetalSkulkBane]

Again, I agree that Gerald and Maria add a lot to Eggman and I would never imply cutting those connections.

But we ignore them for the sake of the question: "are humans worth anything except for Eggman stuff"

- Gerald found mural of SUPER Sonic and based Shadow on that. Average Mobians are not super. And even then, I think Mobians existed 50 years ago, hard to imagine Gerald never met one, considering his excessive studies. But even if I'm wrong, that's so minor, story could be twisted to me being right and work just fine.

- Frontiers = Eggman and Maria, we're ignoring it. But adding this to Movie argument it adds to one point: humans are only good at making Eggman more interesting.

- "Perfect role for humans" is... actually not bad argument, but I don't think making Duke of Soleana mobian would make things that much worse. A little but not that much. Considering that would make Elise mobian, I think it's worth the change.

[Red Hot Jack]

I re-read the issue after a month, pretty cool! I especially want to mention something, according to Ian Flynn's podcast, SEGA wanted Blaze to blush and have feelings for Sonic, which is also similar to something they requested at the end of the Metal Virus saga with Vector and Vanilla, something they had in Sonic X. Despite the fact that Ian doesn't like shipping anymore, SEGA wanted that. Can I say I love this? Not a Sonaze shipper, but still, it's fun.

I don't want romance, drama relationships in the series, but feelings and crushes and soft ships... yeah sure! It helps adding to all types of relationships, be it love, friendhsip, conflicts, rivalries, etc. between the characters in the series. Plus characters like Sonic and Amy, Knuckles and Rouge, Tangle and Whisper, etc. are all teenagers, so it makes sense to have those types of crushes too.