Jump to content
Awoo.

IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread


Dejimon11

Recommended Posts

Fans bitched and moaned about Knuckles always showing up for no reason despite the Master Emerald, so now the rule is that he's stuck there. It was somewhat easier in Archie to use him since he had an actual supporting cast to assist him and his own ongoing storyline to keep him relevant.

Post-reboot were where the cracks started to show, because he only really gets involved after once again, shattering the Master Emerald.

 

So here we are in IDW, which takes place after Forces and how people complained his role there didn't suite him, and now he's back to where he was and just being stuck on Angel Island. Same with Blaze.

 

 

It was somewhat easier to manage this in Archie because there was a whole spin off that allowed focus on characters besides Sonic and Tails. Without that, balancing characters is just extremely difficult.

 

You would have to change the format of the book to more of an ensemble piece to accommodate every cast member, but they're legally not allowed to do that since this SONIC'S series above anything else, and Tails being his bff is there by proxy.

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I seen on this forum, Knuckles role as guardian seems like one of most controversial topics. It's pretty much impossible to satisfy both sides. And neither side is technically wrong. It's just question what idea has more value: having Knuckles around or keeping him "true" to his job.

The way I see there are several ways that to include Knuckles without breaking character
- Something could be happening on Angel Island. When was the last time Knuckles was there to protect ME from thief?
- Some ancient ruins that must be checked and only Knuckles will know how. I think he would spare a minute for high importance treasure hunting. It could be connected to ancient echidna if necessary (if Sega won't allow it, whole thing can be a trap).
- I think overall if situation was really import, Knuckles would shrink ME and carry with him. Mind you, it would have to be something super important.
- Someone could straight up kidnap Sonic and few of his friends for his amusement. Kinda like Grandmaster from Marvel. Or down right they could be stuck in another dimension, like Sonic X did
- Give Knuckles his god damn dinosaur. Then he can take a break.

The hardest problem is how to get Knuckles for something casual, like race or a party. The only way I see it if  the event was on Angel Island.

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If they need to create a character for the purpose of subbing in for Knuckles on Master Emerald Duty I say just do that. Again post reboot Archie had Relic and Fix It (who to be fair were pretty worthless in combat but it at least have Knuckles the excuse to bail) so I don't see why they can't just do that again. Or just give him a Dinosaur 

  • Thumbs Up 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest issue with these "suggestions" here is that they don't solve the fundamental problem. By the end of these story arcs, Knuckles will more than likely return back to his post and we're right back to square one.

 

Really, Sega fucked up by creating a main character who is extremely limited in what you can do with them. He's generally considered by everyone to be a major character in the franchise, but his circumstances just prevent him from actually getting any real focus without breaking his foundation.

 

I've proposed just destroying the Master Emerald before but then you would need to find a new direction for the character due to his close ties to it. 

 

People want Knuckles to be another Tails and just show up, but he's not Tails and it kind if devalues Knuckles to treat him as such 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So in addition simply not giving key plot elements time to rest, the catch with IDW at this point is not giving the other characters much time in the spotlight with or without Sonic being the definitive protagonist by mandate. 

Some complained about certain characters not appearing  much or getting the central focus back in Archie, but to be fair, there were a large number of other core cast members to offer their own source of variety and there was still a clear effort to keep them relevant in someway. The thing is IDW is primarily game stuff with a handful of other characters on the side to help flesh things out a bit, so that fight for attention is no longer an issue and so the fact that things are somehow more restrictive sticks out more.

To be honest, the "Solo Sonica" thing in the games didn't really bother me because we had spent most of the franchise with numerous characters, the new games were written with it in mind, and we still had numerous spinoffs to give everything variety, even when there have been less games on average for a while now. The IDW comics have no such leeway, given that comics are quicker to produce and the serialized format gives them plenty of room to work in. Knuckles, Blaze, Silver, and Shadow are understandable complications because they have a lot more context and mandates that needs to be taken into account, but in addition to all but Silver having questionable restrictions to date, that still leaves more than 7 others to give some focus to and they just can't seem to do much of that. And it really doesn't help that at least the last few arcs have set themselves up to make the other characters the focus only for Sonic, Shadow, and to an extent Tails, Belle, and Starline to end up taking over around the halfway point.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

The biggest issue with these "suggestions" here is that they don't solve the fundamental problem. By the end of these story arcs, Knuckles will more than likely return back to his post and we're right back to square one.

 

Really, Sega fucked up by creating a main character who is extremely limited in what you can do with them. He's generally considered by everyone to be a major character in the franchise, but his circumstances just prevent him from actually getting any real focus without breaking his foundation.

 

I've proposed just destroying the Master Emerald before but then you would need to find a new direction for the character due to his close ties to it. 

 

People want Knuckles to be another Tails and just show up, but he's not Tails and it kind if devalues Knuckles to treat him as such 

There isn't fundamental problem. Knuckles stays on Angel Island and guards the emerald, but * insert scenario here* gives him something to do on the island or allows him to leave it.

I don't think the problem was as severe during Knuckles' introduction, when the rules were loose enough that you could come up with a quick excuse for Knuckles leaving or Robotnik being unable to take the Emerald. As the series has gone on, rules have gotten more consistent for the world and the Master Emerald's power and importance has only grown, making the problem bigger.

Destroying the Master Emerald would interesting, but he would need a Finitevus, Dark Legion, or Dr. Zachary-type enemy to give him purpose afterwards, and IDW would never do it since they want to keep themselves as "almost canon" as they can.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I want Knuckles to be a rival to Sonic who's also an independent hero that has his own adventure from time to time. I'm not asking for him to be another sidekick to Sonic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

There isn't fundamental problem. Knuckles stays on Angel Island and guards the emerald, but * insert scenario here* gives him something to do on the island or allows him to leave it.

I don't think the problem was as severe during Knuckles' introduction, when the rules were loose enough that you could come up with a quick excuse for Knuckles leaving or Robotnik being unable to take the Emerald. As the series has gone on, rules have gotten more consistent for the world and the Master Emerald's power and importance has only grown, making the problem bigger.

Destroying the Master Emerald would interesting, but he would need a Finitevus, Dark Legion, or Dr. Zachary-type enemy to give him purpose afterwards, and IDW would never do it since they want to keep themselves as "almost canon" as they can.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I want Knuckles to be a rival to Sonic who's also an independent hero that has his own adventure from time to time. I'm not asking for him to be another sidekick to Sonic.

That's not the direction Sega want for the character, and it arguably never was. Knuckles getting so much focus and attention was definitely primarily a Western thing between Archie and Fleetway, because the games themselves never really did much with him aside from just being a somewhat recurring supporting character for Sonic. So what they're doing with him now is consistent with that...even if its boring as fuck.

 

Its as you said, rules weren't really set in place at all back then, but now they are. Its a stupid situation really; Sega refuse to do anything substantial with Knuckles or his lore, but they refuse to let other series do anything with him either so they don't "Deviate" from what's established about him. 

 

So his character is just stuck in limbo; he can't progress at all because the powers that be don't want that, but the same powers aren't willing to give more material to work with. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Destroying the Master Emerald would interesting, but he would need a Finitevus, Dark Legion, or Dr. Zachary-type enemy to give him purpose afterwards, and IDW would never do it since they want to keep themselves as "almost canon" as they can.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I want Knuckles to be a rival to Sonic who's also an independent hero that has his own adventure from time to time. I'm not asking for him to be another sidekick to Sonic.

Honestly, Knuckles has a combination of the problems Shadow and maybe Blaze have to an unique extreme: he has no purposeful supporting cast, a dedicated antagonist, or the freedom to just do things anymore.

In Preboot, he had several miniseries, a entire spinoff comic, a large number of retrofitted backups, and originally a Universe arc per year basis that gave him plenty to work with. That meant close allies like Julie-Su, Archimedes, and the Chaotix, supporting side characters like Locke, Lara-Le, and Remington, numerous enemies like Enerjak, four Dark Legion Grandmasters, and Finitevus, and even some complicated rivals like Helmut von Stryker, Rouge, and Thrash.

In StC, he had Zachary and ...whatever else was going on in his stories.

Sonic X wasn't much due to its Adventure and Advance roots, but even it sorta gave him distinct stories with Hawk, Li Yan, and Yellow Zelkova.

New252 Archie dumped most of the numerous Penders and Bollers created stuff in favor of what he had going on prior to Generations, but there was still an effort to rebuild a healthy recurring cast consisting of Relic, Fixit, Snively, Tikal, Chaos, maybe the Hooligans, seemingly Naugus(it's complicated), and originally Thrash.

Now in IDW, which is based in a post Forces and Mania world, there's nothing there to appeal to him for the time being with Chaos apparently being in the same category as Marine and SonicTeam actually decided to enforce him staying on Angel Island to the point of vetoing his teamup with Espio.

So until they either loosen their grip or the comic comes up with a new Antagonist for him, he's stuck in the clouds offscreen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I said, with the prior writers, there was a considerable effort with giving Knuckles his own narrative threads; his own supporting cast, his own Arch enemy, etc etc. But that's not what reflected in the games at all. Knuckles never had his own story arc or supporting characters in the same vein that Shadow does. He has always been considered just part of Sonic's team along with Amy and Tails. 

Even nowadays, Sega do not treat Knuckles and Shadow as on the same level, because they were willing to give the latter a DLC story in Forces and make him a distinct boss fight in Generations, meanwhile Knuckles is just grouped with the rest of the supporting cast. 

 

 

So unless Sega loosen up on that, yea I can't see him doing much more than what he's already doing .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

making a replacement character for knuckles misses the point

guarding the emerald isn't a job, it's a duty and part of his identity

he could have tails devise the best safe ever to protect it, but his duty isn't "make sure master emerald is safe", it's "be there to protect master emerald, the last element you have of your culture"

 

I get wanting to see more of knuckles but this is the sort of thing where like with shadow openly talking about his emotions, is "fixing" a problem that doesn't exist by just making the character entirely different. "man, darth vader is cool, it's so bothersome he's evil so he can't have adventures with luke. what if the emperor made a new darth vader to take his job, and darth vader's a good guy now and always around to be in adventures?"

  • Thumbs Up 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think there's ever going to be a middle ground about this lol; people who like Knuckles wanna see more of Knuckles and kind of hate the fact that he's stuck guarding a plot device that hasn't been relevant in almost two decades. Conversely, whether you like it or not, said plot device is indistinctly linked to Knuckles` character so removing or changing it is fundamentally altering the character. 

 

So this is really the only measure that satisfied both parties; Knuckles will be relevant whenever Sega decide to let the writers use the Master Emerald for anything...how long that will be is anyone's guess, but Knuckles is pretty much benched until that time comes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A temporary solution to get Knuckles away from the Master Emerald without making him hunt down the shards is to have the Master Emerald's power drained and it shattered into pieces at the Emerald Alter like it was at the end Sonic X. Knuckles would be free for a few arcs and the Master Emerald wouldn't be a target until it regenerates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They have no more stories they want to tell with the Master Emerald.

And they could've avoided this narrative dead end by keeping Angel Island in the water and saying that it's entirely powerless outside of cancelling the Chaos Emeralds or they could've destroyed it after such a story focused on it.

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forgot to note that Blaze likely still has Captain Whisker(who was allowed in reboot despite possibly being dead), Johnny, and possibly Dr. Nega to potentially fight against, as well as Marine, Gardon, the Coconut Crew, and the Polar Bear Vikings as supports. Null Mind is unlikely given they actually were in unfinished pencils, but that doesn't mean they can't make another Iblis or Solaris style villain.

Her only known obstacle is being from the Sol Dimension, which would require her to spend time in the Chaos one or Sonic going over there to get screentime.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

And even then, I don't think they would give Blaze screentime by herself unless Silver was with her. 

I mean, Pirate Plunder Panic was a thing in the reboot and the only reason she wasn't in Metal Virus was because they realized the subplot with her would be a bit too dark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I mean, Pirate Plunder Panic was a thing in the reboot and the only reason she wasn't in Metal Virus was because they realized the subplot with her would be a bit too dark.

That was in Archie though, Sega are a bit more hands on now. Now granted, they left Blaze out of Forces while Silver still appeared just fine, so maybe I'm over thinking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Now granted, they left Blaze out of Forces while Silver still appeared just fine, so maybe I'm over thinking.

I mean, Silver had a good reason to be in Forces: he is of the distant future, and Forces' premise has Eggman take over the world. So it stands to reason that Silver would travel back in time in order to prevent the bad future Eggman undeniably causes. Blaze, who lives in an entirely separate dimension, was not affected in the slightest and thus would only get involved to help her friends. And we can assume that circumstances prevented her from knowing about Eggman's takeover to begin with, among any other excuse. Silver, on the other hand, wouldn't have an excuse aside from Eggman doing whatever to prevent his birth.

  • Thumbs Up 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

That was in Archie though, Sega are a bit more hands on now. Now granted, they left Blaze out of Forces while Silver still appeared just fine, so maybe I'm over thinking.

I know, that's why I pointed out that her absence from Year 2 was IDW's decision

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh boy, it’s been ages since we’ve had this debacle spring up again! B)

7 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

From what I seen on this forum, Knuckles role as guardian seems like one of most controversial topics.

The main reason it’s controversial—or rather the reason I made it controversial, because while I wasn’t the only one involved, I was practically one of the oldbies here that raised a stink about it into the debacle it is now*—was because back in the day people were constantly making rules and rules on how characters they don’t like should have a reason to appear while the characters they actually liked can show up for fuck all.

Basically, “rules for thee, but not for me.” And people really didn’t like me holding every character to the same standard of “have a strong reason or don’t show up at all.” So they took their spite out on one of Knuckles’ most well-known title: guardian of the Master Emerald—at that point, people wanted to get rid of it to stop people from talking about it and not have any story made around it. 
 

Needless to say, Knuckles guarding Angel Island is one of the few mandates I’m glad Sega made, even though they really didn’t need to impose on the current comic team. But you never know who might come along and give that the middle finger anyway, so I guess that’s good foresight.

*And Kuzu can vouch for this if you doubt it :P

7 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

It's pretty much impossible to satisfy both sides. And neither side is technically wrong. It's just question what idea has more value: having Knuckles around or keeping him "true" to his job.

How about Knuckles being the character he’s supposed to be: a committed guardian, the mountain to Sonic’s wind, a guy who would rather mind his business doing what he sees is necessary for the greater good? And only taking off when something even greater happens to require he risk leaving his post?

Because here’s the thing people don’t seem to understand: there’s nothing stopping you from letting Knuckles be around. Just don’t ignore the character he was made to be. If this was an alternate setting like the OVA or Boom, that’s one thing, because those are alternate takes where he isn’t a guardian—you don’t have to obey the same rules as the games there, but the simplest solution for is to write a story around Knuckles and the events that involve him being what he was established as. And it’s not that hard.

Here’s 11 ideas I came up with all the way back in 2011 (with annotations on how to do this in a potential IDW plot):

-Have someone invade the Floating Island with no intention of having the master emerald. (At first. Eventually, they might want the ME, but you can have them want to set up a floating base there for outside reasons—say Starline or Mimic wants to stay hidden, and is using a part of Angel Island that even Knuckles wouldn’t think to look or is so far under Knuckles’ nose that it wouldn’t be suspicious until he finds out)

-Have the Master Emerald be affected by certain anomalies that require Knuckles to venture out and fix to save the emerald. (This one’s flexible enough that you can do almost anything)

-Have another character indirectly be affected by the ME so that Knuckles has to go and keep them under control. Say Shadow is using too much Chaos Energy for something, and said energy is being detected by the ME and is causing problems globally that only Knuckles is aware of at that moment and needs to stop Shadow from abusing said energy.

-Have the Master Emerald be the cause of an environmental or global problem that requires Knuckles to stop. (Make a spell gone wrong with “The Servers are the Seven Chaos” and now Knuckles has to fix the thing)

-Have the Master Emerald be the one indirectly causing destruction across the globe. (Say a chain reaction caused by a device made by Eggman or Starline—this one I took from Sonic Underground when Eggman found a second Chaos Emerald that cracked and nearly destroyed the world with its energy)

-Have Angel Island contain more mysteries that even Knuckles isn't aware of (like seriously, why hasn’t anyone thought of that within these 10 years)

-Have someone try to steal the Master Emerald (okay, yes, I know, we’ve been here before, and Metal Sonic already did that during the the comic’s first year. But if people are still willing to search for the Chaos Emeralds for nearly 30 years, I don’t see why this would be a problem for the Master Emerald—you can still do the other things on this list with this idea)

-Have someone do something that only the Master Emerald can stop, i.e. like they did with the Chaos Emeralds in SA2

-Have an all out war on Angel Island that draws the attention of every character even though the ME isn't what the war is about. (I suppose you could say this was done in the Metal Virus arc, but my take when I came up with this idea was more along the lines of a 3-way clash between GUN, Eggman, and as unlikely as this is, the Nocturnus Tribe. There’s still enough factions to pull this off, the Restoration, the D6, and Eggman)

-Have an event that affects the entire globe to the point that every character is affected, Angel Island included even if it isn't a place you're going to explore. (This was basically done with Archie’s Shattered World Crisis, but what’s stopping IDW from coming up with a different worldwide event for their continuity?)

-Have one of the heroic character turn into an antagonist because of them being affected by the ME's power. (NGL, I think I stole this idea from Ian’s Enerjak Reborn story, because his story predates my initial post by 4 years)

Each one of these can be made into a four part arc, heck some can even be made for a 12-issue arc if they really want to scale up the stakes. While I’m not counting on that to happen anytime soon, you’d be surprised how much you could do with just Knuckles, Angel Island, and the Master Emerald—if that talentless hack Penders could make something out of it, quality notwithstanding (because I know we love to beat that dead horse), it shouldn’t be that difficult for anyone else to make something out of it either.

It really just takes creativity instead of trying to take an easy way out. Stories come from seeing characters go through structure of the setting and the conflict that rise from it, not by ignoring it for the sake of fans who want to see him all the time—we’ve already seen this ruin Shadow, for example, in more ways than one.

All in all, there is plenty that can be done with Knuckles as it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its one of the main reasons I hate talking about it on this site, because it always reaches the same conclusion. 

 

Also, ya know, Sega seem to have made it pretty clear that they have no plans to actually do anything with Knuckles or the Master Emerald for the foreseeable future, so Knuckles fans have to pretty much be told "Fuck you, your character isn't allowed to do anything unless its related to a plot point we have no intention of utilizing"  so I'm not really surprised its a plot device that people just want to see go away. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Its one of the main reasons I hate talking about it on this site, because it always reaches the same conclusion. 

I mean, after seeing how the average online Sonic fan has been for well over 16-17 years, for me, it’s less the same conclusion and more reading between the lines of what some were actually trying to say. And some have become more upfront than others about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I mean, after seeing how the average online Sonic fan has been for well over 16-17 years, for me, it’s less the same conclusion and more reading between the lines of what people are actually trying to say. And some have become more upfront than others about it.

I mean, yea, people will always prioritize and rationalize for their favorite characters. That's not hard to understand, I think anyone can understand that. It just gets exhausting after a certain point and make me not wanna care lol.

 

I haven't cared about Knuckles for years because of shit like that lol, and between Sega not even bothering to do anything with him either. Hard to be invested in a character who doesn't do shit and the creators being rather adamant about not doing shit with them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I mean, yea, people will always prioritize and rationalize for their favorite characters. That's not hard to understand, I think anyone can understand that. It just gets exhausting after a certain point and make me not wanna care lol.

Prioritizing and rationalizing for their favorite isn’t exactly what I meant—I can understand it, but folks should also understand that the characters you want to see more often than others does not makes a character a character. Much less a good one.

Among other things…but going into detail is going off topic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

You must read and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to continue using this website. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.