Nestor

I do also rather wonder if his sudden increased antipathy towards them has anything to do with IDW saying how they would be contacting people's favourite creators, old and new, about the new comic.... and didn't contact him.

The more I look at this picture, the more this makes sense - I mean, we know he can draw Sonic to a better degree than this normally, and this does have some LSC-ish traits (huge glassy eyes, oddly proportioned 'realistic' body, face half toon, half human-like)...

I like to headcanon that Sonic Chronicles takes place immediately before Sonic Unleashed and that its cliffhanger leads directly into Unleashed's intro sequence, with Eggman having been able to build up his huge armada and superweapon due to being unopposed for two years whilst Sonic and co were AWOL in the Twilight Cage. I also like to think that this 'free time' Eggman has is when he also builds his Interstellar Amusement Park, as the Colors manual mentions he's been working on it for years.

I think that if they had used him as more of a support character like Chuck Thorndyke or Mr Tanaka - someone to possibly set up the story, or provide some insight into the human world's perspective - while giving the actual Sonic cast the main focus of the story, Chris would have worked better. You could have also then thrown in a handful of Chris-centric episodes now and again to give him a bit of development without it being too annoying that the show was all about him. Episode 21 (Fast Friends) is a good example of how it could have worked - Chris is there and kind of involved, but the spotlight isn't on him and he isn't integral to the plot of the story, leaving room for the other characters to do their stuff. If most episodes had been like that, his character would have been far better.

The saddest thing is, Chris is actually a somewhat well constructed character. His backstory is introduced quickly and explains his traits (his neediness is due to his loneliness from his parents never being present, his wanting to go on adventures due to his pampered lifestyle, etc) yet the show also early on establishes heroic qualities to show he's not just a whiny spoilt rich boy - heck, in his very first scene, the kid dives head first into a pool in the middle of the night still in his pyjamas just because he thought a random animal fell in the pool. And manages to surface dive to the bottom of a swimming pool and pull out a large animal despite still being in his jammies and having just woken up; that's actually kinda rad for a kid that age. The problem is, despite actually being fairly well thought out, that sort of character was just absolutely the wrong choice to insert into a story with Sonic and company; his clingyness and tendency to insert himself into every story meant that he ended up taking away from all of the other characters when they should have been the focus. I get they wanted to have an audience surrogate character, particularly to help Sonic acclimatise to the human world in a (kind of) realistic way, and that they needed to make sure he wasn't just a token character who does nothing... but they unfortunately overcompensated and went too far the other way. Which is a shame, because Chris could have actually been a fairly compelling character in a different show.

It does seem that whenever a disaster happens everyone's miraculously evacuated or saved - I always found it amusing how in Sonic Adventure Chaos is errupting around crowded streets... and then five seconds later, the streets are empty and all the cars are abandoned... As far as confirmed on screen kills go, I imagine Shadow is up there in the runnings with his destruction of the entire Black Arms race. ... You've really got to hand it to him, only in Shadow the Hedgehog could you have the hero's good ending involve the genocide of an entire species with a planet destroying laser.

Shadow has her personality? ...Man, she must have been one depressing kid.

I always liked the idea of an alternate Sonic Heroes ending, starting from where Metal Sonic's 'overlord' form is defeated: Metal: It's no use... but why can't I defeat you? Sonic: Hey, didn't you learn the last time? Sonic the Hedgehog always comes out ahead! Metal: Yes... [suddenly morphs into an exact copy of Sonic] ...and there can only be one Sonic! Metal then tackles Sonic and brawls with him, his friends unable to tell which is which as they're too fast, until they roll into one of the nearby destroyed wreckage pit areas on the ship (from the Metal Madness battle). As the flaming wreckage area begins collapsing around them, Metal reverts to his Neo form: Metal: You will never stop me, I will never cease pursuing you to the end! Sonic: Metal, this is crazy - you'll destroy both of us! Metal: [the camera does a close-up, the flames of the wreckage reflected in his eyes] So be it - my sole purpose in destroying you will finally be fulfilled! As the two square off, some of the collapsing wreckage above them shifts to reveal a faint glimmer of sunlight - the two stare sideways at each other for second before zooming forwards towards the opening through the exploding wreckage for one final race.... which would be the final, playable boss fight, in the same vein as their Sonic CD race. Assuming Sonic wins, he reaches the opening to safety first - only to have Metal Sonic grab his leg at the last second to pull him back into the flaming pit with him: Metal: You cannot deny me my destiny! I will fulfill my purpose as the one true Sonic, and you will be destroyed - an inferior copy! Sonic: [suddenly seeing something ahead] That's the difference between you and me - the one thing I have that you can never copy - [grabs an outstretched arm... the other characters have formed a chain to reach him through the opening] - friends. Sonic is pulled free while Metal Sonic plunges into the molten collapsing wreckage (almost certainly with a dramatic 'No') - cue celebration with friends and something about the REAL SUPERPOWER OF TEAMWORK!!! (c) SEGA ........ You know, I took some cold medication halfway through writing this and I'm now actually not sure whether this is more or less cheesy than the original...

Many thanks! I think you're perhaps you're looking at this from the wrong angle - SEGA haven't decided that only male hedgehogs can go Super because girls are icky or something, it's because they only want the main hero to do it so that it's special rather than being possible for everyone and their dog, i.e. narrative focus. Shadow can do it too as he's the Ultimate Lifeform and Silver... they kind of wrote themselves into a corner with him and had to have him do it so he didn't just drop off the end of '06. Thus, drawing the line at them, the main thing connecting them is their gender and species, hence the delineation. It should also be noted that Knux does actually have a connection with the Master Emerald, being able to sense it and so forth.

It's also not inconceivable that SEGA may move towards there being some sort of genetic component to chaos energy manipulation that is for some reason particularly strong in male hedgehogs (which would also neatly explain the otherwise somewhat random choice of Gerald Robotnik using the hedgehog as the basis for the Ultimate Lifeform). This would allow them to maintain a narrative focus for Super forms as mentioned by Tornado while providing a reason that would make sense in-universe.

I'd perhaps disagree that GUN is 'super evil' - they're ruthless and subscribe at times to an 'ends justifies the means' philosophy, but at the end of the day, their goal is protecting the world, not ruling it. The ARK massacre, while unquestionably wrong, was carried out with the intention of erasing Gerald Robotnik's research as they feared it was too dangerous - they didn't want the chaos emeralds and the eclipse cannon, they wanted no-one to have that power. Remember also that the gems are semi-mythical and that they cannot be used without special technology by non-hedgehog males - technology that GUN takes extreme steps to mothball and bury. This is presumably why GUN seems to have no interest in the emeralds following the ARK massacre - after all, they're not exactly hidden, Station Square has publically showcased at least two of them! In this way, the two world thing should not screw up Shadow's backstory as GUN would not invade Sonic's world for the emeralds anymore than they would have stolen the emeralds from Station Square. The only other minor anomaly - Shadow being on what is presumably Sonic's world in Heroes - can be easily explained by Eggman simply moving him to one of his bases on that planet.

Not necessarily - Angel Island could simply move between the two worlds periodically, depending on the nature of the 'gate', and have been in Sonic's world during S3&K and on Earth in SA1. Going from the games themselves, the island seems to have some kind of movement going on - it was in the middle of an ocean in S3&K and on the coast in SA1, so perhaps it follows a set flight path loop that happens to take it between the worlds. Whether SEGA have actually ever stopped to think through this implication is another matter.

Earth - the humans just used mobian architects for those ones.

I was under the impression that this is what they were going for (although I don't think there'd be a distinction between 'realistic' and 'cartoonlike' humans) - twin planets of Earth (with more realistic environments, as seen in most of the modern era games) and the unnamed 'Mobius' planet (checkered hills etc, as seen in the classic era and arguably the modern games referencing "Sonic's World"). Of course this still leaves a whole mess of plot holes (how are the Chaos Emeralds present in both planets' histories at seemingly simultaneous times? Why are the ancient echidnas on Earth and not Sonic's World?), but they could just about manage to incorporate it if they so wished, if they get around to actually mentioning it in the games.

You should consider asking him why he never takes into account the effect of other properties on Ian's work...