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IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread


Dejimon11

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4 hours ago, Razule said:

Damn.. the comic's not even that old and a mandate's already contradicted something that already happened. The character's broken. Why even bother using him anymore if he can avoid it? 

I just don't understand why Shadow of all characters is the one with so many restrictions. Or maybe he's just the only one who's restrictions contradict his previous portrayals so hard. 

"SEGA Gaslight" should be a more common phrase in the fanbase.

Sega really takes Shadows character from terribly reviewed games and the backlash hes received in respective games very seriously and really tend to sweep all hes done under thr rug to save face making me thing they dont care for his character anymore.

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It makes me wonder if this comic will still continue despite all of this controversy going on.  There's only so much that fans can take before they throw their hands up in the air and give up.

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2 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

It makes me wonder if this comic will still continue despite all of this controversy going on.  There's only so much that fans can take before they throw their hands up in the air and give up.

If it’s still selling I think it will continue

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Just now, Leebo4 said:

If it’s still selling I think it will continue

Do you think it's best to leave Shadow off the comics for awhile until SEGA change up their mandates, just to avoid anymore controversy with his characterization in the comics?

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1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

I like this very much...

It's also true...

How come ians writing everyone with fluity and charismatic highlights in idw with the exception of shadow.

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2 minutes ago, SnooPigu said:

How come ians writing everyone with fluity and charismatic highlights in idw with the exception of shadow.

Because SEGA's mandates regarding Shadow's character is restricting him from writing Shadow any other way.  If SEGA doesn't let up on the mandates regarding Shadow soon, then Shadow might not appear in the rest of the IDW run for awhile.

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For the second I was trying to figure out how the world this got like this again. Turns out to me a much newer episode of the Bumblekast. Huh.

Yeah, just keep Shadow of this for the indefinite future.

 

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I don't think that the mandates are really putting the comics in danger (I mean, it's difficult to know how much it'll impact the sale of the biggest group of buyers). And about him appearing or not, it'll also depend of Evan Stanley, that doesn't seem to have the same exact vision of the mandates (not surprising : a same mandate can be seen pretty differently by different writers), and IIRC she said having plans for Shadow (or story with Shadow I'm not sure), so we might see him somewhere after Zeti Hunt, especially as Flynn is the secondary writer now, not the head writer. It'll depends of if Stanley want to make him appear in her arcs or not.

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The Shadow situation is only relevant to his fans; Shadow's not a major character anymore, so he's hardly the biggest issue of the book. It's doing fine. 

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7 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Do you think it's best to leave Shadow off the comics for awhile until SEGA change up their mandates, just to avoid anymore controversy with his characterization in the comics?

Shado,is nowhere near my fave characters in the series anyway

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9 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Characters can't stay static forever, at some point they have to change.

That's just outright not true and tunnel visioned. I feel these examples have been brought up before but Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Doraemon, etc etc etc.

 

If anything I'd say needing to be more aware of wider swaths of media is important here because a lot of these fan complaints are the result of outright different expectations of what the comic and franchise is and should be. Sega wants a light-tone eternal character permanent adventure story, a lot of American fans especially that grew up with Archie want a superhero comic book with drama and evolving characters- and more so, act like that's the only way things could even be.

 

Bobby from famed blog Thanks Ken Penders has made this point nicely about Shadow- she doesn't like current Shadow, but it's important to not act like the only possible way to write him is how Archie did it and thus any other interpretations are inherently broken and wrong in and of themselves rather than because of execution.

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9 hours ago, Razule said:

Would anyone mind if Shadow was how he was in 06 forever?

He was really boring in 06 so, yeah.

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There are multiple ways to interpret Shadow that could be valid, but we have to acknowledge when a character is fundamentally off the mark. A lot of the people who were malding when Sonic was running errands for the crown in archie are dragging their feet on this for whatever reason. 

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I find it more ironic that this is more or less exactly how Shadow was in Sonic Boom, a petty, one-dimensional egotist who went on about how friends are weak and how he’s the strongest and is basically diet Saiyan Saga Vegeta, and even at that - it got played up as a joke in Boom, but it was still rightfully called out as a weak, bland, and OOC version of Shadow...

...and yet he’s more or less been transplanted to the main series now. The only difference is Boom played up Shadow getting knocked down several pegs as a joke, while the main series expects us to take it at least somewhat seriously.

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10 minutes ago, Wraith said:

There are multiple ways to interpret Shadow that could be valid, but we have to acknowledge when a character is fundamentally off the mark. A lot of the people who were malding when Sonic was running errands for the crown in archie are dragging their feet on this for whatever reason. 

Because in theory the way this Shadow is being stated to have to be doesn't strike me as different from anything game-wise except maybe 06, and only tangentially. Chao Races proved that, and if you want a fun experiment, read Sonic Wiki's profile of Sonic X Shadow (with the usual reminder that Sonic X is the closest writing-wise to the games' concept of the characters)- it tracks pretty heavily with what we hear. I've nothing to mald about here regarding the concept.

 

On the other hand, I don't remember any game where Sonic was an errand man for the crown and beat Tails up for defending democracy.

 

EDIT: And this is a side point to the main point which was "no, you absolutely can have static characters who only evolve due to how different writers have different takes on them, rather than writing them as character growth". Too often people take "things that are nice in some stories" as a law- I saw the other day someone say "it's ok for a character not to have a backstory" and a bunch of replies that just couldn't fathom since they've always learned a good story is when a character has a backstory. In the same way, no, a good story isn't obligatorily "when a character develops" and if anything it often, when done carelessly, just results in a character losing all their appeal points and issues, then having to be walked back if it's an ongoing franchise.

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37 minutes ago, The KKM said:

That's just outright not true and tunnel visioned. I feel these examples have been brought up before but Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Doraemon, etc etc etc.

 

If anything I'd say needing to be more aware of wider swaths of media is important here because a lot of these fan complaints are the result of outright different expectations of what the comic and franchise is and should be. Sega wants a light-tone eternal character permanent adventure story, a lot of American fans especially that grew up with Archie want a superhero comic book with drama and evolving characters- and more so, act like that's the only way things could even be.

 

Bobby from famed blog Thanks Ken Penders has made this point nicely about Shadow- she doesn't like current Shadow, but it's important to not act like the only possible way to write him is how Archie did it and thus any other interpretations are inherently broken and wrong in and of themselves rather than because of execution.

People are always going to gravitate towards the interpretations they prefer, and  then call foul when the series drifts away from that. There's no point in bring up the fact, we're all biased and want what we want. 

If you set up things to be a certain way, then people are going to expect things to remain SOMEWHAT consistent. Things will change, absolutely, but there needs to be some type of foundation to keep the core intact.  Shadow's (and most of the cast's) core has been compromised and people are upset about it. 

 

 

I said this on Sonic Retro, but Shadow how he is being interpreted now feels like he's being written by and for people who don't actually give a damn about him as a character. All the controversial aspects about him that people complained about (His backstory, his "boring" personality, etc etc) have been effectively been sanded down, and replaced with something else entirely. He's pretty much exactly what people have been mocking him for; a shallow, brute with no depth whatsoever. 

I don't really think people are unreasonable in calling out such a drastic change in his character; if the head writer can no longer rationalize these changes and is pretty much throwing his hands up in frustration, then perhaps there's a problem that needs addressing. Especially since this new version of Shadow has been getting nothing but criticism whenever he shows up. 

So I'm trying to figure out what exactly has been accomplished by writing him like this?

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You absolutely can prefer one interpretation over another. Just saying there's a difference between "I don't like this concept and this writer can't make it work and this other writer can but I don't like it anyway" and "this concept is inherently broken and impossible to make work".

 

"I like characters being able to develop" vs "Characters can't stay static forever".

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I'd be genuinely concerned if Sega was focused on honoring Sonic X's version of the characters over any of the earlier or later takes on the cast that were more popular with fans. Wouldn't like...anything that was based in the actual games make more sense? Especially in this supposed adaptation of the games universe?

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The point isn't they're focusing on Sonic X versions, the point is Sonic X versions were the closest to the intended game versions (the old Naka quote about how it's the closest to Sonic Team's vision, etc)- so by proxy, if something seems similar to how they were written there, they're similar to how they'd been envisioned game-wise too. Feel free to replace "Sonic X" with "Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes" if it makes you worry less.

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11 minutes ago, The KKM said:

You absolutely can prefer one interpretation over another. Just saying there's a difference between "I don't like this concept and this writer can't make it work and this other writer can but I don't like it anyway" and "this concept is inherently broken and impossible to make work".

 

"I like characters being able to develop" vs "Characters can't stay static forever".

Fair enough. But like I said, when you set up the foundation of characters being able to be dynamic and change, the expectation is for them to follow up on said development. Not to regress into something else. 

You would have a point if Sonic never had any stories of dynamic character development ever, but that's kind of blatantly untrue. You can't have it both ways; either the series is going to have dynamic characterization or its not, but you can't pick and choose when that happens on a whim because all you're doing is creating inconsistencies. 

If the cast's modern interpretations were AU's or something, I guarantee people would have less issues overall. People complained about Boom, but that died off quickly when it remained as its own thing. But as far as the games are concerned, we're supposed to accept that these characters are the same no matter how drastically their characterizations change over time. You can probably rationalize it with some characters to an extent. But there's no rationalizing what they're doing with Shadow; everyone who has enough knowledge about this series understands his story, and they know enough to understand what they're doing with him now makes no sense, and is only being done for corporate reasons. 

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49 minutes ago, The KKM said:

That's just outright not true and tunnel visioned. I feel these examples have been brought up before but Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Doraemon, etc etc etc.

 

If anything I'd say needing to be more aware of wider swaths of media is important here because a lot of these fan complaints are the result of outright different expectations of what the comic and franchise is and should be. Sega wants a light-tone eternal character permanent adventure story, a lot of American fans especially that grew up with Archie want a superhero comic book with drama and evolving characters- and more so, act like that's the only way things could even be.

 

Bobby from famed blog Thanks Ken Penders has made this point nicely about Shadow- she doesn't like current Shadow, but it's important to not act like the only possible way to write him is how Archie did it and thus any other interpretations are inherently broken and wrong in and of themselves rather than because of execution.

I agree honestly. There comes a point where characters reach the point where they are as the creators want. Characters like Lupin the Third or Optimus Prime have reached a point where they don't really require all that much in the terms of Character development (though personally I would like it id Prime could make jokes or play basketball again).

There's this point where characters reach a point where all these elements are just associated with them and that's the defacto version and honestly that's not always a bad thing. Keep trying to reinvent the wheel and you get a million stories about "What if Superman but Evil".

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4 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

You would have a point if Sonic never had any stories of dynamic character development ever, but that's kind of blatantly untrue

Not really- characters evolving into a new status quo and then that status quo sticking, especially when it's their introductory story, is a very common technique in long-running franchises like this. See for instance Goemon's introduction in Lupin- antagonist to Lupin, enamoured of Fujiko, that story ends with Goemon joining the gang, now that's the status quo for the next 50 years.

 

Now, the question becomes, is the concept of Shadow being a loner, closed off, not showing his vulnerabilities, wanting to be stronger, wanting to be the coolest, a walk back on what came before game-wise? Forget Archie- just games. Some would argue yes because of 06, but I'm not certain. That's my personal opinion though, and mostly I think even if it a walk back is it's such a minor one (Shadow isn't particularly open and friendly in 06 either) as to be inconsequencial, if the execution pans through.

 

The bigger issue, on reception side, is the note I had to add of "Forget Archie". Shadow was mostly absent since 06, so a lot of people got their Shadow content from Archie itself, and that Shadow was frankly a lot different. That's why it feels like this "new" (really, been there since the start) concept is such a radical departure, I think, even for Ian himself- people didn't realise how different Archie Team Dark had become from the games since there wasn't really Team Dark in the games for a decade, and that colours their view of the characters overall.

 

Again though, not saying you have to like how Shadow's written in IDW. Outside of Chao Races and the last monologue in Zombot, I've not been a fan either, much like how I didn't like him in Free Riders, etc. The execution isn't there. But that to me has always seemed more an issue of the execution (Ian just having a lot of very understandable trouble adapting to a version of the character that's very different from what he wrote for a decade, Pontac and Graff just writing exaggeratedly comedic takes based on a short profile blurb, most likely) than the concept, because the concept is fine with me.

 

I'd compare it as Archie Shadow was Wolverine- dark and brooding yeah sure but also very openly emotional especially to friends. "I'm the best at what I do and what I do ain't pretty". Bike-driving, grumbly and complaining, comedic violent dark type who's very sure of himself and is opening up from a traumatic past. Sega Shadow is being compared over and over with Vegeta but I'd say more he's a Sasuke, classic non-adult Sasuke- loner, stay apart from people, hide his vulnerabilities, has people who'd normally be considered close friends but he refuses to think of them like that, wants to be stronger than everyone. I'm ok with either SasukeShadow or WolverineShadow, I'm moreso annoyed at people acting like SasukeShadow is a new thing or an inherently broken and impossible concept to work with.

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1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

He was really boring in 06 so, yeah.

Everyone was, he could have been improved over time.

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3 minutes ago, Razule said:

Everyone was, he could have been improved over time.

...so then he wouldn't be the same.

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