Pontaff Retrospective: What's Up with all the Hate?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Honestly, not gonna argue that overused memes aren't annoying, but I find them pretty mild compared to other elements done badly.

[Tyranno]

Meanwhile I don't understand why everyone uses Ian shitting on Drago as a metric of "all characters should be treated with respect regardless of how the writer feels about them."

We're talking a loathsome, cowardly, weak, pathetic misogynistic bully who was that way ever since his INCEPTION. Like, not even Penders treated him as anything more than what he was. What respect does this character bloody deserve?

[E-122-Psi]

45 minutes ago, Razorsaw said:

Meanwhile I don't understand why everyone uses Ian shitting on Drago as a metric of "all characters should be treated with respect regardless of how the writer feels about them."

We're talking a loathsome, cowardly, weak, pathetic misogynistic bully who was that way ever since his INCEPTION. Like, not even Penders treated him as anything more than what he was. What respect does this character bloody deserve?

Under the same theory we could claim Ian has it in for Fang really. How many villains are conceived as butt monkeys after all?

I do admit some beefs with the character and story writing just seems inherent to how they are conceived. I mean Lara Su's a laughable creation under Penders' pen, but it's not like Ian or any other writer managed to make her good.

[Idon'tcare]

On ‎05‎-‎02‎-‎2016 at 11:14 PM, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

.

Quick question: why are you two completely disregarding the more game-centric reboot like that isn't currently going on, and has barely done any of what you guys are talking about that's been left in the past? :V

Heck, even then, no one has let Ian slide for his flaws when he makes them. Fans have called out things like Worlds Unite as the clusterfuck it was expected from the beginning. Kinda moving the goalpost back there.

Cause I haven't read the more game-centric reboot bar issues 252, which pissed me to no end by how fast each threat was dealt with and SU issues 55 - 56 whose piss poor OOC shit-tastic writing had me suffer a series of wallbanger moments big enough to rage quit all my Archie comics subscriptions.

Finally, last year a friend sent me Sonic Boom Issue 1 stating it was fantastic, good and that I'd love it enough to come crawling back to the Sonic comics like a good little bitch. Instead, that one single comic reignited my sheer loathing of Ian Flynn and his writing skills with the blatant character derailing and shitty below Pontaff level humor oozing off of every page.

Ian Flynn will not be a better choice than Pontaff at anytime, whatever he cooks up will either be just as shitty or worse.

#noflynn4sonic

[shdowhunt60]

The first two issues of Sonic Boom were shit. Because the whole thing was basically Ian absolutely railing against the direction that Boom went for a lot of things, particularly how much of a passive-aggressive jerk Boom!Amy is, and how incredibly stupid they've made Boom!Knuckles. No, the end result was not pretty, but I somehow doubt that it was ever intended to be. It was a really bitter satire of Sonic Boom's narrative direction.

Issue 252 was fine. I don't get your beef there. The point wasn't really the threats, as it was quickly getting everyone (including the main cast) up to speed. And I think it did admirably well in that regard by taking the moment to re-establish characters and settings with lots of bonus character moments in between.

And as for Issue's 55 and 56, yes Pirate Plunder Panic was pretty damn mediocre. But those were written by Tracey Yardley!, who frankly never really was a good writer. So far, as far as that's concerned, I remain unimpressed and suspicious of any writer who isn't Ian Flynn.

[Idon'tcare]

On ‎05‎-‎02‎-‎2016 at 6:31 PM, shdowhunt60 said:

But the thing with Ian is that he's matured substantially as a writer over the years. Like, really, that completely ignores all the fantastic stuff he's done in the past couple of years. That ignores that he really hasn't been focusing on Sally all that much, his fiancee has been doing most of the Sally related stuff. That ignores that he's largely distanced himself from romance plots. That ignores some fantastically written arcs like Champions. That ignores the beautiful tragedy behind some of the Egg Bosses, like Cassia and Clove.

Did he mature his writing or was he forced to do so by SEGA/Archie?

Given that the reboot and more game centric writing comes right on the heels of the Ken Pender's blowback, I find it far more of a likely chance that both SEGA and Archie have gotten fed up with the way the medium have been presented in the comic, especially the constant focus on romance and Sonic's flip flopping between cheerful jerk jock and complete asshole would have come under strict supervision as SEGA has put down a rule saying Sonic can't have a girlfriend as Flynn himself has stated time and again while working his ass off to hook up his own preferred couple. (This attitude is what makes him such a hypocrite when he says there's too much of a shipping war going on, he's the one who restarted the war and made it a cluster fuck every chance he got )

This is just guessing, but I'd bet that SEGA finally took a good hard look at Archie's comics once the whole lawsuit got rolling and went ape shit at the number of times the comics staff have taken a dump on the mandates by skirting around them or just simply ignoring them just to satisfy the need of one lone writer's/fanboy's need to tailor their licensed comic to be all about his OTP. Recall how Flynn said they had to fight hard just to keep the Satam stuff in the comic, clearly SEGA is fed up with the way Archie has run the show and prioritized the satam stuff over the Sonic stuff for most of the comics run. So now, for better or worse the comic is now under super strict supervision by SEGA.

Besides, from what I have seen of the reboot and its not much, the bad writing and urge to spam memes is still with him. But to really see just how bad of a choice he would be when it comes to writing, Sonic Boom issue 1 is a classic example of it. The first issue has Sonic acting like the regular comic Sonic rather than Boom Sonic, Amy is turned into a PMSing shrew and Knuckles regressed completely into the brain dead idiot zone just to provide a reason for Amy to bitch at him whenever he talks. All of which is done so we can set up a generic "our friend turned bad cause we treated him like dirt" plot. That's not quality writing, that's a writer pissing all over the source material just to write what he thinks would be a good plot.. in short, Ian Flynn pulled a Ken Pender's in the very first issue of their new comic book series.

 

[RaceProUK]

48 minutes ago, Idon'tcare said:

Did he mature his writing or was he forced to do so by SEGA/Archie?

The latter implies the former, so it's a bit of a redundant question really.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

On 2/5/2016 at 0:31 PM, shdowhunt60 said:

But the thing with Ian is that he's matured substantially as a writer over the years.

who's to say that Pontaff won't do the same? No one believed in Flynn before, there were people who complained about him every issue that came out but now people praise him because he got better. So I imagine the same will happen with Pontaff. 

[shdowhunt60]

8 hours ago, Mikyeong said:

who's to say that Pontaff won't do the same? 

Who's to say that they will? I've seen far more writers just continue being shitty writers than people like Flynn that completely turned around. That's a rarity.

[Gabz Girl]

I think the worst thing that Flynn wrote recently was Worlds Unite, and that's only because it was a badly done crossover with WAY too many characters. Collide was far superior.

Other than that and his earlier crap though he has done some great stuff with Archie Sonic. Deep down, I think he could definitely do a better job writing for one Sonic game than Pontaff because he actually gets the characters.

[shdowhunt60]

Well, World's Unite was definitely pretty mediocre. I'd say Control was also. But otherwise, everything else he's done since the reboot's been pretty spot on. Did I mention how much I positively adore Champions?

 

Edited February 7, 2016 by shdowhunt60
Damnit, got them mixed up again

[Zaysho]

As a proponent of Flynn's work and someone who would like to see him work on a game proper, the ONLY thing I would expect him to be able to do is write better dialogue. SEGA/Sonic Team are still going to tie his hands and give him the same bare bones crap to work with they've been giving Pontaff. Even I know they're not going to let him go and do his thing.

Of course, I don't want to completely undermine Pontaff, but they had their chance when they were given a script like Lost World, and it's really not much different from what they did with Colors or Generations. I don't have high expectations of them putting out better than that unless things really change at SEGA/Sonic Team and they start giving a damn about story/script quality again, and I'm not optimistic about that at all.

[Mania Pipe]

Off-topic:

I thought Worlds Collide was pretty solid, albeit having a rather rushed ending but solid nonetheless, still better than the utter clusterfuck mess that was Worlds Unite.

On-topic:

Admittedly I really don't hate the two as a lot of people do and I thought Sonic Colors writing was just okay at best, but after Generations, Lost World and Shattered Crystal, I really don't have much hope for Pontac and Graff for writing the next Sonic game. I'm sorta in this mindset where I kinda wished that the writing got passed to someone who knows how to at least write the characters better, the story is all on SEGA/Sonic Team, but I'm certain that's not happening anytime soon, or ever.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

18 hours ago, Idon'tcare said:

Cause I haven't read the more game-centric reboot bar issues 252, which pissed me to no end by how fast each threat was dealt with and SU issues 55 - 56 whose piss poor OOC shit-tastic writing had me suffer a series of wallbanger moments big enough to rage quit all my Archie comics subscriptions.

So basically, your personal fit left you more than two - going on three - years out of date with what's going on and still stuck in a past that everyone else, including the writer you're bashing, has moved on in favor of something else. That's a really weak case for #noflynn4sonic.

 

Quote

Ian Flynn will not be a better choice than Pontaff at anytime, whatever he cooks up will either be just as shitty or worse.

#noflynn4sonic

Which will likely be thanks to SEGA for not letting him work his magic than it will be Ian himself, otherwise the fame he's gotten for doing better than the games would say no. 

You're just fighting blind hate with the same blind hate over those who dislike Pontaff.