Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Slashy]

13 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

It's because IMO the IDW originals are kind of simple, they aren't supposed to be that big level of depth, but are pretty cool looking, badass, with fun powers and sometimes have a tragic or sad backstory. That's why most of them worked.

I think Jewel is my least liked newcomer, because she's boring, her favorite thing is to fill up papers, make lists and organize things, I get it that not every character needs to be a hero with powers and that's great about her, but she's just lame for me.

My favorites are Tangle & Whisper because their dynamic really works well, they are like female versions of Sonic and Shadow but actual friends... or a ship, whatever they decide or allow them to be. Dr. Starline is also great but I wanted a backstory for him rather than just "I'm an Eggman fanboy", but he's having a nice character arc in my opinion.

As for Surge and Kit... there is not much to say, we have barely seen 1 issue of them, they aren't even in action yet.

Belle is just an issue of being overused in a short time span.

Rough and Tumble are just kind of there, been dropped since issue 15. Mimic was weird, he was this threatening antagonist in the first mini, and then really underpowered and weaker in the second one.

I think the writers suffer from trying to write compelling personal stakes and character drama. The closest we get to it being well done is the dynamic between Tangle and Whisper and even that was mostly brought upon by the violent consequences of Whisper having her team wiped out and dealing with Mimic.

Belle and Jewel aren't combat characters nor are they great support characters either like Maria and the writing hasn't shown that they could carry low stakes slice of life stories.

After all this time I don't know what either is supposed to bring to the table besides trying to give the Restoration a reason to exist in the case of Jewel (which it could really just be forgotten and little would change)

[Kuzu]

30 minutes ago, Slashy said:

With the exception of Whisper and Starline most of the characters don't have much depth or gigantic emotions or have had radical character development.

The obvious mandates holding back the game cast isn't being addressed in most of the new characters.

Well given you've been complaining about focus on Surge and Kit, I don't think you'd be too happy about more time spent on the OC's.

 

Really, it mostly comes to down to Sonic already having an extremely bloated cast to begin with, there are only but so many roles that can be filled, and only but so much panel time that can be devoted to fleshing everyone out.

 

I would say cutting down is a solution but that's obviously never gonna happen workout upsetting that character's fanbase. So we just keep adding to the roster I guess.

[Razule]

None of the new characters are particularly deep, but they fit with the game characters that way. Likeable, but not complex.

Ian's said (something along the lines) the difference in how IDW is planned compared to Archie is that he isn't constantly planting the seeds for things that won't be paid off for another 75 issues. Everything so far's been resolved within a year. I thought whatever Whisper's deal was would've taken longer to be resolved, but her whole past was revealed in her mini-series, and that was the end of that. Maybe there'd be room for more development if things were more stretched out?

[Slashy]

24 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Well given you've been complaining about focus on Surge and Kit, I don't think you'd be too happy about more time spent on the OC's.

 

Really, it mostly comes to down to Sonic already having an extremely bloated cast to begin with, there are only but so many roles that can be filled, and only but so much panel time that can be devoted to fleshing everyone out.

 

I would say cutting down is a solution but that's obviously never gonna happen workout upsetting that character's fanbase. So we just keep adding to the roster I guess.

I just want to see them be more than Starline lackys or anti-heroes. I have said they are better additions in this comic mainly because Sonic needs more villains. I hope they stick around.

16 minutes ago, Razule said:

None of the new characters are particularly deep, but they fit with the game characters that way. Likeable, but not complex.

Ian's said (something along the lines) the difference in how IDW is planned compared to Archie is that he isn't constantly planting the seeds for things that won't be paid off for another 75 issues. Everything so far's been resolved within a year. I thought whatever Whisper's deal was would've taken longer to be resolved, but her whole past was revealed in her mini-series, and that was the end of that. Maybe there'd be room for more development if things were more stretched out?

On the contrary I think that Whisper is one of the better handled characters because her backstory was paced for an arc. The comic should be ideally be building characters to function as one-shots with the possibility for more content down the road rather than long term additions to the comic which encourages bad pacing and characters being placed in when there isn't quite a firm idea of what their appeal is or what role they play.

This is what the games do with a lot of new characters, without loads of time to work with everything about the character to make them appealing is figured out and explored in their initial story. The writers don't need to still figure out the appeal of a character and the audience doesn't have to feel like their time is wasted watching a character that isn't entertaining to watch.

[Kuzu]

I mean it depends; their main purpose are meant to be antagonistic foils to Sonic and Tails, which is already limiting their overall scope.

I can't really seem them becoming deep and complex characters in the same vein of Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze and even then, those characters had their personality and motives severely simplified in recent years to stay in line with the overall simple direction the series has been in since Colors 

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, Red Hot Jack said:

...her favorite thing is to fill up papers, make lists and organize things...

Her job?

That's unrealistic...

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Slashy said:

There isn't much to her character at the moment. I am not going to get hyped for potential that hasn't been hinted at or hype a character up based on wishful thinking of what could be done for them.

My point is there's more to her than just Sonic Knockoff, even if it is mostly style over substance.

3 hours ago, Slashy said:

That fine, but I will wait till I see it. Rough and Tumble are also an independent faction and they suck. 

To be fair, they are very comical and the fact that they obviously didn't get the level of response Tangle or Whisper has been lamented by Flynn as the reason we don't see much of them.

3 hours ago, Slashy said:

The enemy they are fighting is very obviously Kit.

Are they gonna fight him though? Both Kit and the newspaper didn't mention anything about them having an encounter.

Unless Vector and Amy/Belle encounter them near the end of the story, it seems pretty clear that Starline's annoyance had more to do with them failing the objectives.

3 hours ago, Slashy said:

I don't think they should never appear but I also don't need the main book and side comic to dedicate time to them to establish them as regular villains for Sonic to fight in the future.

I fully expect issue 50 to be the culmin ation of this Surge Kit arc.

 

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Nothing we can do but wait to see where this focus leads to. The staff are pretty obviously trying to put in the legwork at making them credible threats and fully realized characters.

 

2 hours ago, Slashy said:

I would much rather see a new zone or Macguffin get all the rage than another new character. I will say that the Imposters probably deserve it in their case because we were in dire need of new antagonists.

I want IDW to mix it up so there is more of a selling point than new characters especially when they don't always pan out.

That and they were supposed to be in the comic much sooner. So now that they're finally having them in, they're going to capitalize on them.

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

The story arcs focusing on the new characters have been the better ones to me. I like most of them and wouldn't have minded the book introducing even more but I guess if they stop here they have a pretty solid cast.

My only beef is that if Starline was always going to be the only major alternative to Eggman, they could have differentiated him a little more. Sonic didn't really need another mad scientist to fight.

 

2 hours ago, Slashy said:

Starline is like the best new addition to the comic.

I am not even saying to stop adding new characters but it genuinely seems like new characters are the only thing IDW seems confident will drum up hype in the comic. I wouldn't be surprised if they double down on it with the Metal Virus not being a huge success.

I would much rather see unusual plots and mythology be the selling point of new plots like the storybook titles and Unleashed.

Honestly, I feel like thing could do better to just start focusing on the gamecast again with the comic cast occasionally supporting them. That's what we're getting now with Amy and the other girls, but we need that for less used characters.

1 hour ago, Celestia said:

I'm honestly surprised the Warp Topaz kind of seemed to just exist, seems like it could have had a bit of a backstory to it. Like the Chaos Emeralds have some backstory (admittedly stuff that doesn't come up at all outside of old manuals and the like, but still) and while the Time Stones also just exist, they're at least tied to a mysterious planet. I guess we could learn more about it at some point but we don't even know where it is now.

If it helps, Sonic Team specifically asked them to remove a panel of it being destroyed.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Red Hot Jack said:

 

Isn't Starline a mix of

Snively = a lackey

Eggman Nega = Eggman clone/wannabe

Finitevus = warping portals gimmick

But unlike with those, they did something interesting with him and made him be an independent and confident villain after being a sidekick.

 

 

They did that with Finitivus too, and they might have done so with Snively before Archie was canned given that he had ulterior motives working with GUN.

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, Slashy said:

Is she pure evil? She seems to be quick to rebel against Starline so I don't know what she actually wants. It doesn't seem like there is a stretch to convince Surge to become an anti-hero.

She is just raw aggression right now, with Sonic as a goal target.

4 hours ago, Slashy said:

It seems more like a lot of her purpose is just because Metal isn't allowed to talk so we need a more chatty rival.

 

 

Can Metal Sonic bleed? Or change expression? Or I guess vouch Affirmative Action (if s/he cared)?

[Kuzu]

I would agree that out of all of the cast, Whisper is the one that feels the most realized as a character. But that also makes it much more difficult for her to fit into future storylines without feeling superfluous like many game characters nowadays.

[Slashy]

4 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

She is just raw aggression right now, with Sonic as a goal target.

Can Metal Sonic bleed? Or change expression? Or I guess vouch Affirmative Action (if s/he cared)?

1.No but given kids comic neither can Surge

2. No

3. Yes we had an episode of Boom built around the concept didn't we?

[Kuzu]

48 minutes ago, Slashy said:

I just want to see them be more than Starline lackys or anti-heroes. I have said they are better additions in this comic mainly because Sonic needs more villains. I hope they stick around.

On the contrary I think that Whisper is one of the better handled characters because her backstory was paced for an arc. The comic should be ideally be building characters to function as one-shots with the possibility for more content down the road rather than long term additions to the comic which encourages bad pacing and characters being placed in when there isn't quite a firm idea of what their appeal is or what role they play.

This is what the games do with a lot of new characters, without loads of time to work with everything about the character to make them appealing is figured out and explored in their initial story. The writers don't need to still figure out the appeal of a character and the audience doesn't have to feel like their time is wasted watching a character that isn't entertaining to watch.

I don't quite get this, do you mean to say the game cast are developed similar to Whisper and don't fall into the trappings as the others?

[Slashy]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I don't quite get this, do you mean to say the game cast are developed similar to Whisper and don't fall into the trappings as the others?

Not all of them, but for most of them yeah especially if you count Sonic X as a canon interpretation of their character. Characters like Chip, Shadow, and Blaze were likely built as one-shots and as such had all of their important backstory and character appeal present in their first appearance.

[Razule]

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I would agree that out of all of the cast, Whisper is the one that feels the most realized as a character. But that also makes it much more difficult for her to fit into future storylines without feeling superfluous like many game characters nowadays.

Yeah, it's similar to Shadow's problem. Her original arc is over, but she's a semi-recurring character in a comic meant to continue for potentially ever, surrounded by characters who are inherently built to last because they never had backstories to begin with.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

 

Really, it mostly comes to down to Sonic already having an extremely bloated cast to begin with,

K, I actually want smoke when I say this (not from you Kuzu, I know you meant well), but Sonic has nowhere near as bloated a cast as people think.

That belief needs to die back in 2006 where it belongs.

[Slashy]

1 minute ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

K, I actually want smoke when I say this (not from you Kuzu, I know you meant well), but Sonic has nowhere near as bloated a cast as people think.

It has got way too many heroes. The glitch trio has potential because they are antagonists.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Just now, Slashy said:

It has got way too many heroes. The glitch trio has potential because they are antagonists.

Okay, now that is true.

But the simple solution is just more villains.

[Kuzu]

14 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

K, I actually want smoke when I say this (not from you Kuzu, I know you meant well), but Sonic has nowhere near as bloated a cast as people think.

That belief needs to die back in 2006 where it belongs.

If a series is pushing over 10 recurring main characters. I kind of think you have a problem.

 

its not even supporting characters, but most of these characters have been the focal point of many different storylines.

25 minutes ago, Slashy said:

Not all of them, but for most of them yeah especially if you count Sonic X as a canon interpretation of their character. Characters like Chip, Shadow, and Blaze were likely built as one-shots and as such had all of their important backstory and character appeal present in their first appearance.

As mentioned, doing that runs the risk of ruining what made the character appealing if they can't settle into a new niche. Out of those three, only Shadow seems to have settled into one, and even then its a very controversial role they've settled him into.

 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Razule said:

. I thought whatever Whisper's deal was would've taken longer to be resolved, but her whole past was revealed in her mini-series, and that was the end of that. Maybe there'd be room for more development if things were more stretched out?

 

1 hour ago, Slashy said:

I just want to see them be more than Starline lackys or anti-heroes. I have said they are better additions in this comic mainly because Sonic needs more villains. I hope they stick around.

On the contrary I think that Whisper is one of the better handled characters because her backstory was paced for an arc. The comic should be ideally be building characters to function as one-shots with the possibility for more content down the road rather than long term additions to the comic which encourages bad pacing and characters being placed in when there isn't quite a firm idea of what their appeal is or what role they play.

This is what the games do with a lot of new characters, without loads of time to work with everything about the character to make them appealing is figured out and explored in their initial story. The writers don't need to still figure out the appeal of a character and the audience doesn't have to feel like their time is wasted watching a character that isn't entertaining to watch.

Whisper was definitely the second most intriguing character added to the cast, due to her hush demeanor, bond with the Wisps, violent nature when dealing with Eggman, and side eyeing Shadow, but she also ended up peaking way too early and was left with little else afterwards.

She was clearly set up with an interesting mystery and a backstory in mind, but that ended up coming to fruition sooner due to her popularity combined with Tangle's motivating IDW to move forward with a miniseries starring them. And since the latter was eventually admitted to have been a fluke, delivering on Whisper's backstory was the obvious course of action.

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

, Starline seems to be there to address a problem that Eggman never really had before, 

Elaborate?

1 hour ago, Red Hot Jack said:

 Dr. Starline is also great but I wanted a backstory for him rather than just "I'm an Eggman fanboy", but he's having a nice character arc in my opinion.

He could stand to have more revealed about him, yes.

1 hour ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Isn't Starline a mix of

Snively = a lackey

Eggman Nega = Eggman clone/wannabe

Finitevus = warping portals gimmick

But unlike with those, they did something interesting with him and made him be an independent and confident villain after being a sidekick.

Afaik, Starline is evidently a fully original character that just so happened to have Finitevus and Snively vibes by virtue of the broad net his design/role covers. He actually has more in with Maw.

Did you actually read anything from Archie or is that just the bare minimum secondhand?

 

1 hour ago, Red Hot Jack said:

. They said in interviews, they wanted more strong and badass female characters around because, as we know, Amy has the love interest role, Blaze is in another dimension, Rouge is sexualized and Cream is a kid and more than often forgotten.

Oh don't worry, I remember that tomato.

 

35 minutes ago, Slashy said:

 

3. Yes we had an episode of Boom built around the concept didn't we?

What Season 3 Sonic Boom episode were you friggin watching?! O_o

25 minutes ago, Slashy said:

It has got way too many heroes. The glitch trio has potential because they are antagonists.

True dat. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

34 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

If a series is pushing over 10 recurring main characters. I kind of think you have a problem.

That’s a rookie number.

Nowadays, 15 is often a bare minimum when they’re starting out (not an exact figure, but an average guesstimate). And Sonic being around as long as he has been far out-paced by franchises with more than twice that number.

Not that we should want an over bloated cast size (memories of Worlds Unite coming to mind), but 10 recurring characters ain’t that friggin much these days.

[Diogenes]

There isn't some set number of characters that's right for every series, it depends on a whole host of factors. But I feel the Sonic series has pretty consistently struggled to manage larger casts.

[Sonictrainer]

A funny Surge Animation

 

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

A funny Surge Animation

 

That's some straight up OK KO shit 

[Kuzu]

54 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

That’s a rookie number.

Nowadays, 15 is often a bare minimum when they’re starting out (not an exact figure, but an average guesstimate). And Sonic being around as long as he has been far out-paced by franchises with more than twice that number.

Not that we should want an over bloated cast size (memories of Worlds Unite coming to mind), but 10 recurring characters ain’t that friggin much these days.

As Dio said, there's no set number for how many main character a series should have, but I think its generally accepted that Sonic has done a really poor job at handling a large cast.

[Slashy]

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

If a series is pushing over 10 recurring main characters. I kind of think you have a problem.

 

its not even supporting characters, but most of these characters have been the focal point of many different storylines.

As mentioned, doing that runs the risk of ruining what made the character appealing if they can't settle into a new niche. Out of those three, only Shadow seems to have settled into one, and even then its a very controversial role they've settled him into.

 

Actually if you really look at it, the only major character since the classic era to not be built as a one-shot was Cream and Cream has several unusual factors regarding her introduction as part of her goal as a character was to sell the gaming audience on Sonic X.

Part of the reason she also works is that she was conceived as a support character designed to work with the core cast of heroes.