Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Kuzu]

I am starting to think Sega of America have more of an influence on things than Flynn is letting on, because this depiction of Shadow isn't reflected at all in the Japanese text. 

[SnooPigu]

Can someone tell me why Shadow is not allowed to be an equal peer to Sonic narative wise as its mostly his character narrative to protect and save the earth as much as Sonic. Sonics the hero, but Shadow was built up as a great heroic force based on his character arc in Shth and 06, maybe a bigger protector of the world than Sonic.

 

Why does he have to be only the rival or fanservice ally in Sonics hero stories?

[Dr. Detective]

I know I've taken a break from this thread but I've gotta ask; is anyone talking about that other thing in that Bumblekast? That thing about the Master Emerald not having any special properties?

Like, apparently he thought the Master Emerald had the power to neutralize the Chaos Emeralds (like was stated to be the case) and he got a note back saying "No, it doesn't".

I don't understand anything anymore. I can only hope something has been lost in translation or this is another one of those things they say is true but don't care to actually show, making it easy to ignore. Like how the animal and human world thing is never talked about in Forces so you'd only know it was a thing if you read those interviews.

Someone might have thought they were doing a smart thing and were just populating the world with more anthros.

[Razule]

Oh yeah, that was definitely another thing that annoyed me. I get that no organic character has used it to transform in the games before, but to claim it can't do something that it has done and was one of its two main purposes is so strange. Does it even keep Angel Island afloat anymore, or does it just fly on its own magically?

Why? What do they gain from this? Retconning it into being essentially just a giant green rock that doesn't do anything so Knuckles is more justified in leaving it?

[StaticMania]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

That thing about the Master Emerald not having any special properties?

This isn't new...

If it is new, I'm projecting.

It only exists to power down the Chaos Emeralds and actually has limited power itself.

[Razule]

2 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

This isn't new...

If it is new, I'm projecting.

It only exists to power down the Chaos Emeralds and actually has limited power itself.

That's the thing, it can't even do that.

[Dr. Detective]

3 minutes ago, Razule said:

That's the thing, it can't even do that.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[StaticMania]

Positively speaking...since that's the only thing it really ever needed to do, this is fine.

How many times can that plot point even be relevant?

[Wraith]

9 minutes ago, Razule said:

 

Why? What do they gain from this? Retconning it into being essentially just a giant green rock that doesn't do anything so Knuckles is more justified in leaving it?

This doesn't even make sense because they just passed down a mandate where he has to stay anchored to it.

They simplified it because that's how they treat everything now. They want to dumb everything down as much as possible without actually rebooting so they don't lose any fans.

[Dr. Detective]

Just now, StaticMania said:

Positively speaking...since that's the only thing it really ever needed to do, this is fine.

How many times can that plot point even be relevant?

What? Why is that fine?

Why is it fine that the only thing we know for sure it can do, it can't do anymore?

What's the point of it then? Just to keep the island floating? Why?

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

What's the point of it then? Just to keep the island floating?

I'm sure that is actually the only reason.

Though if they do go back on Knuckles' leash, now we just have a landmark with nothing special on it.

[Razule]

10 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Positively speaking...since that's the only thing it really ever needed to do, this is fine.

How many times can that plot point even be relevant?

It'd be one thing if they said it lost the ability to do that, but to just say it doesn't implies it's never been able to do that, and that hurts the canon of the games where that was a plot point. And these very comics where Neo Metal Sonic secured it so Sonic wouldn't be able to use the Chaos Emeralds against him. 

[Kuzu]

 

 

What's even real anymore lmao. So the Master Emerald just...does nothing then? So why the hell is Knuckles guarding it now? Why do they make shit harder than it needs to be....

[Diogenes]

7 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

So why the hell is Knuckles guarding it now?

Keeps his home afloat. I know I wouldn't want my house falling from the sky and sinking into the ocean.

[Kuzu]

This series fucking sucks. 

[Kazhnuz]

To be fair, about this one I would wait to know how much there is some translation stuff or if it's genuine. How much it's that they didn't thought it would work in this case (for instance if it's against the Zeti, if it would work against the emerald scattered) or how much it would work in general. Stuff like character changing, or the overall universe doesn't surprise me that much, but here it seems a bit weird that they could go to forbid it "in general" and it wouldn't be the first time that we believe that a "mandate" is more broad that it really was.

[Soniman]

Pretty dumb for the MASTER Emerald being unable to exert any control or influence on the lesser Chaos Emeralds even though that's exactly what it did in SA2 but...sure OK it doesn't do anything now lmao 

[SBR2]

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I know I've taken a break from this thread but I've gotta ask; is anyone talking about that other thing in that Bumblekast? That thing about the Master Emerald not having any special properties?

Like, apparently he thought the Master Emerald had the power to neutralize the Chaos Emeralds (like was stated to be the case) and he got a note back saying "No, it doesn't".

I don't understand anything anymore. I can only hope something has been lost in translation or this is another one of those things they say is true but don't care to actually show, making it easy to ignore. Like how the animal and human world thing is never talked about in Forces so you'd only know it was a thing if you read those interviews.

Someone might have thought they were doing a smart thing and just populating the world with more anthros.

Ok this is something I will take issue with. I argue that Sonic lore isn't really that deep but there's still things that have been established that should be really basic stuff.

Like how the controller exists to unify the Chaos and how like you said Mike it's been established to neutralize the Emeralds. 

This is one I absolutely can't defend. This is dumb.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

4 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Positively speaking...since that's the only thing it really ever needed to do, this is fine.

How many times can that plot point even be relevant?

As much as your creativity can make of it.

How many times can a character even be relevant?

[Kuzu]

I don't know what being "deep" has to do with just being consistent with the stuff that you establish within your setting. 

[Celestia]

6 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

To be fair, about this one I would wait to know how much there is some translation stuff or if it's genuine. How much it's that they didn't thought it would work in this case (for instance if it's against the Zeti, if it would work against the emerald scattered) or how much it would work in general. Stuff like character changing, or the overall universe doesn't surprise me that much, but here it seems a bit weird that they could go to forbid it "in general" and it wouldn't be the first time that we believe that a "mandate" is more broad that it really was.

Considering it's ability to neutralize the Chaos Emeralds came up in the first arc of this comic, either it's a context thing like you're saying (I hadn't thought of that but it's definitely plausible), or whoever is in charge of these things changed their minds arbitrarily since then (which is also plausible...sometimes I wonder if it's a revolving door of people Ian's in contact with and they make these calls on the fly, lol).

[Razule]

Maybe they thought having it able to neutralize the emeralds and the characters not using it was a plot hole. A future plot where a villain wants the emeralds could be solved pretty easily if Knuckles just turned them off. But they haven't used the Emeralds in a plot in ten years, so I don't know why they would decide to change this now..

Oh wait, no, it's never been able to do that. In fact, why are we complaining about this? Imagine thinking the Master Emerald can control the Chaos Emeralds. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Basically someone up in Sega has never actually written a story before...

[SBR2]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I don't know what being "deep" has to do with just being consistent with the stuff that you establish within your setting. 

I'm just saying that in general it's not like the series lore is that complicated that a simple thing like what the Master Emerald does should be this hard to keep consistent. 

[DabigRG]

On 5/18/2021 at 1:34 PM, SnooPigu said:

Maybe Shadow will get better when sega allows him to be as pivitol to the setting like Sonic and Eggman is and his own main character role narrative.

So, probably never?

In hindsight, it's pretty obvious that a fundamental problem with characters like Shadow is that they overpower the status quo. This would be why most of his game appearances gave him his own backstory, environment, motivations, and agency that often pushed the fundamental Sonic vs Eggman dynamic to the side.

Most of that stuff isn't available to with now, partly since this takes place on the Animal world rather than the human world. Most of that context is gone and so Shadow forces himself into the flow to largely unsuccessf .

On 5/18/2021 at 6:06 PM, Razule said:

I've heard it said that Shadow tends to be different in the Japanese and American scripts. Given that Sonic Boom was an American project and Sonic Forces was only translated into English, and both those Shadows were very different, maybe the "Vegeta-Shadow" is something that Sega of America wants to push for whatever reason?

Hasn't Iuzuka been in America for a while now?