Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[horridus]

2 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809940917427675136
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809941681923444736

I'm almost impressed that he managed to make extending an olive branch sound extremely condescending and dismissive toward everything that came after he left.

I find these statements rather ironic given that he has frequently claimed that the comic is dying and at one point stated that it wouldn't last past 2016. To say nothing of him repeatedly saying he was 'over' Sonic and yet, here he is, speculating about how he should totally be a part of the huge milestone issue. 

You think I'd be upset, but honestly I'm just shaking my head. This entire display is just pathetic. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I find it laughable he has the mouth on him to claim he can bring the comic back to "its former glory" for Issue 300, when he's literally known as the person who killed the comic for sixty issues, 40 Knuckles issues, and several specials, while Ian is seen as the man who saved the trainwreck before it crashed and died hard, taking so many characters with it.

[Multikaris]

40 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809940917427675136
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809941681923444736

I'm almost impressed that he managed to make extending an olive branch sound extremely condescending and dismissive toward everything that came after he left.

Heh, heh. Can we bring in the Fleetway guys too? 

I wonder how this issue would work out... Maybe new timeline (IMO Timeline 3, 4, or 5 Sonic given Worlds Unite, Worlds Collide happening again in the new continuity with same ending, and maybe the weird early comedy era) helps give the old one a happy ending and then Lara-Su shows up and promotes herself. 

 

Or better yet, Lara-Su meets George Liquor, American! 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, It's a Very Merry Miru said:

Heh, heh. Can we bring in the Fleetway guys too? 

I wonder how this issue would work out... Maybe new timeline (IMO Timeline 3, 4, or 5 Sonic given Worlds Unite, Worlds Collide happening again in the new continuity with same ending, and maybe the weird early comedy era) helps give the old one a happy ending and then Lara-Su shows up and promotes herself. 

It wouldn't happen, because Archie isn't insane enough to kick out the person who's saved their asses when it came to this comic, who already has up to Issue 300 written out already. That's not even going into the fact that the issue would likely sell like shit because either no one would want to support Penders and his antics, or they just flat out wouldn't want to read his shit again. Not to mention that SEGA would rip the license off of Archie as soon as possible because they wouldn't want Penders anywhere near them again after all he's done. After all of the strides taken to ensure Sonic's popularity is being strengthened between Archie, 2017, and Mania, SEGA won't allow the person who single handily killed the comic for five to ten years back onto it again. Not only for the sake of quality control, but also because Penders couldn't be trusted as far as you can throw him.

[RetroRy]

1 hour ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809940917427675136
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/809941681923444736

I'm almost impressed that he managed to make extending an olive branch sound extremely condescending and dismissive toward everything that came after he left.

Extending an olive branch...Ken Penders...

He basically said everything after him was garbage. Garbage that is suppose to be ending this year according to him so why is he so concerned about issue 300? Because he was wrong and is trying to course correct and make himself look like he is better than everyone else. And the big problem? People believe him because he is amazingly outspoken and unprofessional while Ian, Vin and company are actually working on issue 300 and making it about the franchise/the fans and NOT themselves. 

Sorry, didn't mean to rant but I got triggered i guess. Do kids still say "triggered"? ?

[Blazey Firekitty]

To play devil's advocate a bit, I can kind of see what he'd talking about with those issues. I could imagine Sonic #50 causing some timeline shenanigans because of how the Ultimate Annihilator, a doomsday weapon from SatAM got dragged into Archie continuity as some kind of vaguely defined reality warping beam. Also he probably picked 125 because that was more or less the start of his feud with Karl Bollers, given that the way Bollers had Knuckles return to the living world was different from what Ken planned. 144 was just wrapping up the Mobius 25 years later story, which I don't blame people for forgetting about since oddly little happened in it.

None of this, of course, justifies Ken just suddenly popping out of the ether from time to time with no apparent goal but to damage the current comic.

[horridus]

And lo, Penders continues to demonstrate his magnanimity. 

 

"Play Nice". After cheerfully dismissing the current run and implying his return would improve things. 

Funny guy, that Penders. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, horridus said:

And lo, Penders continues to demonstrate his magnanimity. 

 

"Play Nice". After cheerfully dismissing the current run and implying his return would improve things. 

Funny guy, that Penders. 

Ah, alright.

And where's Mina gonna come in?

Or Hope?

Or any of the other characters better than yours that's now gone because of your nonsense?

[Kintor]

It's pretty obvious by now that Ken Penders is going to remain a thorn in the side of the Sonic franchise so long as still has a Twitter account. I mean, this little stunt about 'offering' to help write #300 just seems like attention seeking to me. His grand plan to hold various comic characters to ransom fell apart when Sega and Archie decided to reboot the continuity. Allowing Penders anywhere near the comic today would be a huge mistake, he'd just included something in the story designed specifically to help him start another lawsuit.

This is honestly is a hard thing for me to say. I want to respect Penders as writer, for all his input on the comic as helped to give it a unique identity within the Sonic franchise. Yet I can't deny the many questionable decisions that happened under his watch at Archie. Such as Knuckles the Echidna #13, which sees Charmy's friend (who is also a bee) dying from an apparent drug overdose. Not to mention that whole Mina the Mongoose love triangle thing, which while not necessarily a bad idea by itself was poorly executed to the point of dragging down the whole comic.

The entire Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is better off without Penders. It's just a pity that Sega hasn't yet found a way to sue him and reclaim the rights to all those characters, if only for the sake of bringing back the Dark Legion - since they have become iconic villains of sorts. Ah well, one day perhaps...

[horridus]

1 minute ago, Kintor said:

Not to mention that whole Mina the Mongoose love triangle thing, which while not necessarily a bad idea by itself was poorly executed to the point of dragging down the whole comic.

Slight correction- that one was Karl Bollers' doing, not Penders'. 

Having said that, he WAS later responsible for the later love triangle that involved Fiona, and the one with Bunnie before that... 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, horridus said:

Slight correction- that one was Karl Bollers' doing, not Penders'. 

Having said that, he WAS later responsible for the later love triangle that involved Fiona, and the one with Bunnie before that... 

 

And having destroyed all of Mina's character development in the span of one issue.

Spoiler

Yes, as a Mina fan, I will always see that as one of the very worst moments of this comic.

 

[Kintor]

8 minutes ago, horridus said:

Slight correction- that one was Karl Bollers' doing, not Penders'. 

Having said that, he WAS later responsible for the later love triangle that involved Fiona, and the one with Bunnie before that... 

 

Fair enough, although I still think Penders deserves blame for not pushing back against the Mina love triangle. I suppose his later contributions along those lines show he didn't have a problem with that sort of things.

Yet on the other hand, in hindsight it shouldn't come as great shock that writers originally recruited from Archie's ranks would eventually gravitate towards love triangle plots. After all, high school romances have been Archie Comics' bread and butter since they started publishing. Never mind the fact that no one at the time stopped to consider whether what worked with Archie and his friends wasn't going to resonate with readers of Sonic the Hedgehog.

[SBR2]

8 hours ago, horridus said:

And lo, Penders continues to demonstrate his magnanimity. 

 

"Play Nice". After cheerfully dismissing the current run and implying his return would improve things. 

Funny guy, that Penders. 

First off PISS OFF YOU SANCTIMONIOUS SHIT! Second off sounds like he's been listening to the angry portion of the fanbase again because he seems to believe the book needs "Saving".

[Big Panda]

Ken's plan for 300 would probably be the Super Genesis Wave bringing back the old continuity, but the timeline is conveniently jumped back to where 159 left off.

[antyep]

3 hours ago, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

Ken's plan for 300 would probably be the Super Genesis Wave bringing back the old continuity, but the timeline is conveniently jumped back to where 159 left off.

No doubt. Didn't Penders suddenly had the echidna civilization fixed up without any explaination after Bollers had Eggman take over or something?

[Big Panda]

5 minutes ago, antyep said:

No doubt. Didn't Penders suddenly had the echidna civilization fixed up without any explaination after Bollers had Eggman take over or something?

Maybe make it so the wave also convenitetly wrote RtAI out of the timeline.

[horridus]

23 minutes ago, antyep said:

No doubt. Didn't Penders suddenly had the echidna civilization fixed up without any explaination after Bollers had Eggman take over or something?

Pretty much. There was mentions of 'rebuilding', but frankly everything was pretty much as it was beforehand, rather than the city being in ruins and the Echidna struggling to re-adjust to a normal life. Any deeper implications of the aftermath of the Dingo occupation was cheerfully glossed over in favor of an easy return to the Status Quo. 

[Adamis]

Speculation : Ken might want to advertize his Lara-Su project in his hypothetic #300 script, a bit like what he did in the Image crossover.

[horridus]

5 hours ago, Adamis said:

Speculation : Ken might want to advertize his Lara-Su project in his hypothetic #300 script, a bit like what he did in the Image crossover.

That does sound eerily like the precise kind of crap he'd pull if he thought he could get away with it. 

And we have yet more from Penders on the subject of 300 and him.

Awful nice of him to not really clue us on how any of that would supposedly work. Guess we'd just have to take his word for it.

Edit: 

When did this happen? I'm looking through the Archie twitter, and I'm not seeing any mention of Ken OR of issue 300. 

Edit2: 

Once more, I'm having difficulty locating the tweet/news report that can verify this. Am I looking in the wrong places??

[Tylinos]

Quote

Archie extended an olive branch which I'm acknowledging. I don't want to hear later I wasn't willing to play nice.

No, Ken, this is you once again setting up for the chance to say later that Archie didn't want to play ball in the end and it's all their fault, while still not mentioning the part where you want payment for the use of your characters. (Which Archie/Sega wouldn't get much of a return-on-investment from doing, except maybe as a one-off "HEY BUY THIS ISSUE" thing.)

Also, I wouldn't really consider insulting the series by saying it needs to return to its former glory "playing nice".

[horridus]

 

27 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

No, Ken, this is you once again setting up for the chance to say later that Archie didn't want to play ball in the end and it's all their fault, while still not mentioning the part where you want payment for the use of your characters. (Which Archie/Sega wouldn't get much of a return-on-investment from doing, except maybe as a one-off "HEY BUY THIS ISSUE" thing.)

Also, I wouldn't really consider insulting the series by saying it needs to return to its former glory "playing nice".

I'm just wondering who said what that would make him want to play it out that Archie is even considering letting him near anything ever again. I'm looking for tweets and news reports, but nothing comes up, nothing that could even be twisted into that if you squint. 

[Tylinos]

Just now, horridus said:

I'm just wondering who said what that would make him want to play it out that Archie is even considering letting him near anything ever again. I'm looking for tweets and news reports, but nothing comes up, nothing that could even be twisted into that if you squint. 

My best guess is that, assuming he isn't just making things up or overexaggerating something, they might've had a conversation behind closed doors.  Maybe he told them he'd be willing to do an issue, and Archie said they wouldn't be against it.

[horridus]

6 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

My best guess is that, assuming he isn't just making things up or overexaggerating something, they might've had a conversation behind closed doors.  Maybe he told them he'd be willing to do an issue, and Archie said they wouldn't be against it.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time he chose to interpret politeness as an endorsement. Evidently he once claimed that Ben Hurst 'passed the torch' to him and that he was praising his work, when Hurst had never read anything by him. 

[Agie]

I'm sure I said this before, but his actions ensured that his past work is not only looked down upon by newer fans, it doesn't even have the nostalgia filter among older fans to fall back on anymore.

The nostalgia for your work is mostly gone, Penders, and any memories of your characters that are untainted only remain so thanks to other writers who handled them. So of course, you couldn't even let them have that.

[horridus]

At this point I'm starting to think he's being deliberately obtuse, not only about the fact that this discussion was opened by him rather condescendingly dismissing it as it currently exists, but also about his very vocal disdain for everything that happened after he left and his professed desire to see it undone.