Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

4 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Filler or not, I think the worst kind of stories is something Penders did with KtE book: stories that are just don't work on their own, but make you believe all of this is building up towards something amazing... and then that something never really happens. Like everything about Tobor and Moritori Rex.

Basically "it's about journey, not destination" flipped on it's head, and then destination non existent of just disappointing. That's the worse kind of stories.

Hey look on the bright side. It did  build up to something amazing…after Penders was shown the door for Flynn to take over for it.

[Wraith]

The book has been lower stakes since Zombots ended. Even the mainline Imposter Syndrome stuff isn't supposed to be tense or particularly high stakes. This is a completely different book from TMNT and it's clear that they aren't really trying to make #50 as big of an event as it was in archie.


That being said...I kinda wish the stakes were raising again? I like the slice of life/character building stuff alright but they've been doing it for a while.

[MetalSkulkBane]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The book has been lower stakes since Zombots ended. Even the mainline Imposter Syndrome stuff isn't supposed to be tense or particularly high stakes.

I think the mistake was making so many 4 parters. The longer the story, the larger stakes should be. (It's not a unbreakable rule, but broadly speaking I think it would improve things).

30 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Hey look on the bright side. It did  build up to something amazing…after Penders was shown the door for Flynn to take over for it.

Flynn kept few elements (Dimitri, Lien-Da), but most elements got flushed down the toilet (whole Dingo/Echidna war).

[Slashy]

I might be the only one who wanted things to be lower stakes from Metal Virus, but I feel like a few problems have arised.

A. Stories are poorly paced and feel kind of crazy given their length. Something like the Chao Races and Trial By Fire could have just been two issues, the latest issue would have benefitted from being two-four issues to actually let a mystery develop.

B. Belle is just not that compelling of a character to build a series of stories around and her conflict is underdeveloped and I am not seeing where it is supposed to go from here. She doesn't play off the characters well like someone like Emerl did in Battle.

C. There is still too much emphasis on promoting future stories rather than focusing on the current story being told. It seems too afraid to actually commit to being episodic for a while and I think that hurts it.

D. I think the character writing while solid is still basic even when we get a good bit of character drama like Tangle wanting to leave the Restoration it is given little screentime to actually do anything with it. Trial By Fire could have been an opportunity to play up the formula and have the central conflict be character focused instead of spending two issues trying to stop a fire that I expect most of our main cast to be capable of.

We have seen the Sonic cast work in this setting X did it a few times well in its first two seasons, Boom did it. You can argue Battle did it really well given how character centric it is.

[Kuzu]

17 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I think the mistake was making so many 4 parters. The longer the story, the larger stakes should be. (It's not a unbreakable rule, but broadly speaking I think it would improve things).

No I agree with this. Almost every arc since Year 3 started didn't really need 3-4 issues. "Chao Races and Badnik Bases",  "Test Run", and "Trial by Fire"  could have just been 1-2 issues, and then more time could probably been spent on other things. 

 

I do not mind low stake arcs, and honestly after the Metal Virus, it was definitely needed. That said, most of these low stake arcs did not need to last as long as they did. It's made Year 3 feel very disjointed as the overarching plot is Starline's ploy for power with Surge & Kit, but we didn't even find out his plan until over a year later. 

 

For perspective; "CRBB" was October 2020, which is the formal start of Year 3. Surge & Kit do not make their first appearance until Imposter Syndrome, which started in November 2021. So that's 13 months of mostly spinning wheels, with the main story thread being Belle's story arc. 

[Slashy]

27 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

No I agree with this. Almost every arc since Year 3 started didn't really need 3-4 issues. "Chao Races and Badnik Bases",  "Test Run", and "Trial by Fire"  could have just been 1-2 issues, and then more time could probably been spent on other things. 

 

I do not mind low stake arcs, and honestly after the Metal Virus, it was definitely needed. That said, most of these low stake arcs did not need to last as long as they did. It's made Year 3 feel very disjointed as the overarching plot is Starline's ploy for power with Surge & Kit, but we didn't even find out his plan until over a year later. 

 

For perspective; "CRBB" was October 2020, which is the formal start of Year 3. Surge & Kit do not make their first appearance until Imposter Syndrome, which started in November 2021. So that's 13 months of mostly spinning wheels, with the main story thread being Belle's story arc. 

I wonder if it would feel so frustrating if there was no Belle, and what we got really were just 4 disconnected stories with possibly the final one tying into IS towards. Maybe Bad Guys could have ended with the setup to IS.

You would have a year where for the most part the story at hand is JUST the story at hand, no constant teases of payoff, no connective tissue forced in.

[Kuzu]

Belle's story isn't the problem, it's just the fucking pacing. The content itself is fine, its how its being told that I have an issue with. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Personally speaking, Starline remains the constant problem throughout Year Three. A lot of the pacing problems comes down to either cutting a plot line short to shove in some random Starline escapade, or the story itself suffering majorly because they feel the need to force an already limited story in terms of pace and content into shortening itself even further to fit this stuff in.

Both Chao Races & Badnik Bases, and Zeti Hunt were either forced to rush things or cut things off prematurely to shoehorn Starline’s plots into it. At least two issues could’ve been fully cut out as is if they didn’t shove Starline in, and that’s on top of the sheer levels of absolute filler being placed into the story as it is. They’ve basically gambled a lot on if you give a shit about Starline, because with the number of plots he’s intruded upon, and the mini series focus on him in two separate miniseries now, you’re either intrigued, or you’re absolutely sick of seeing him presented as the main overarching villain. To me at least, this probably would be a situation done better where they hold off on Starline for a decent while, and have another overarching plotline, while occasionally showing us Starline progressing his schemes.

Like how Archie Sonic had Flynn’s initial run jump between Eggman initiating his endgame schemes, Fini readying his plans to use the Master Emerald to rebirth Enerjak, Scourge’s creation and subsequent soul-searching as to what he really wants to do (ultimately deciding on altering his entire planet to be different from Mobius, and prove himself the ultimate best). And that was in between dangling threads like Naugus/Mogul, A.D.A.M, Shadow realising the truth about his creation, etc. Every plot felt important and had their own time and place to breath and take up the show for awhile and didn’t overstay their welcome to the point you get immensely tired of seeing them, which IMO has really become the case for Starline for me.

Surge and Kit at least represent a chance to shake things up with the dynamic and I’m at least interested to see how things play out there, but it’s hard to say it was worth a lukewarm third year where most stories felt like either filler or a constant struggle and battle for page count to shoehorn the overarching plot in.

[Kuzu]

Eh, I feel like that's ultimately subjective and depends on how you feel about Starline. If you never cared about him to begin with, then I can see why the constant focus on him would be grating. But I don't fall into that category so I can't really say I share the same sentiment there. At worst, he's just Eggman lite but that's hardly the worst character trait I've seen. 

For me, it really just does come down to the pacing. I have no issue with any of the story decisions being made, I just think things could have been paced much better. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Eh, I feel like that's ultimately subjective and depends on how you feel about Starline. If you never cared about him to begin with, then I can see why the constant focus on him would be grating. But I don't fall into that category so I can't really say I share the same sentiment there. At worst, he's just Eggman lite but that's hardly the worst character trait I've seen. 

For me, it really just does come down to the pacing. I have no issue with any of the story decisions being made, I just think things could have been paced much better. 

I mean, that’s what I said, if you legitimately like him, then you’ll likely find it marginally intriguing at least. If you don’t, then you’re going to find it absolutely grating when he constantly shoves himself into nearly every story in some way shape or form to steal the spotlight from said story. 

What isn’t as subjective is the fact that him plopping into random stories has hurt their pacing and focus. As I said, both CR and BB, and Zeti Hunt are really particularly hurt by it, with the main plots basically being shoved half cocked into two and a half issues, wrestling for control with Starline’s ploys.

[Kuzu]

That much I can agree with yes. 

[Slashy]

 

16 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Eh, I feel like that's ultimately subjective and depends on how you feel about Starline. If you never cared about him to begin with, then I can see why the constant focus on him would be grating. But I don't fall into that category so I can't really say I share the same sentiment there. At worst, he's just Eggman lite but that's hardly the worst character trait I've seen. 

For me, it really just does come down to the pacing. I have no issue with any of the story decisions being made, I just think things could have been paced much better. 

No but his complaints do resonate with my problem that this season is not really committing to being episodic nor is it doing a great job setting up the overarching plot. It feels like several stories that all could easily be disconnected, but are forced into the overarching plot.

I don't get a full story about Chao Races because we gotta get Starline and Belle introduced, I don't get a full story about Sonic, Tails, and Amy in a VR world because Belle is here and we gotta focus on her story, I don't get a full story about Zeti storming the restoration because Belle and Starline are both here.

Trial By Fire is the closest we get to these things not being issues, but ironically it practically foregoes its potential B-plot with Tangle and Jewel. The one time where I think the focus should have been on the character centric conflict it isn't and the irony is it would work so well to make the whole wildfire conflict more engaging.

A lot of these A plots sound like good ideas but like are quickly tossed aside before they are really explored.

[Red Hot Jack]

11 minutes ago, Slashy said:

 

No but his complaints do resonate with my problem that this season is not really committing to being episodic nor is it doing a great job setting up the overarching plot. It feels like several stories that all could easily be disconnected, but are forced into the overarching plot.

I don't get a full story about Chao Races because we gotta get Starline and Belle introduced, I don't get a full story about Sonic, Tails, and Amy in a VR world because Belle is here and we gotta focus on her story, I don't get a full story about Zeti storming the restoration because Belle and Starline are both here.

Trial By Fire is the closest we get to these things not being issues, but ironically it practically foregoes its potential B-plot with Tangle and Jewel. The one time where I think the focus should have been on the character centric conflict it isn't and the irony is it would work so well to make the whole wildfire conflict more engaging.

A lot of these A plots sound like good ideas but like are quickly tossed aside before they are really explored.

This is all true, you make a lot of good points such as the good ideas being tossed away, but to me it's clear the book doesn't want to focus on one-off fun little stories, it is a lot story driven and spents even too much time setting up a bigger plot. This is what the book is. It's definitely opposite to the Boom cartoon or comic.

[Slashy]

9 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

This is all true, you make a lot of good points such as the good ideas being tossed away, but to me it's clear the book doesn't want to focus on one-off fun little stories, it is a lot story driven and spents even too much time setting up a bigger plot. This is what the book is. It's definitely opposite to the Boom cartoon or comic.

That's fine if it wants to do that (hell there were ways it could have had both even this season if it wanted to), but it needs to commit to a story structure. If it didn't want to do these one-off stories why set up so many disconnected plots? I am sure with great pacing you could get two satisfying stories in the 80 pages, but that's not something I believe can be easily done and the stories suffer instead.

Issue 48 partially works because it fully commits to one story even if I wish we got more of the Chaotix actually being detectives.

[Razule]

Can't believe they actually made up their own lyrics instead of a reference. Shame they can't say "ass" in this comic. This issue was a fun one-off. Kind of feels like an odd place to put it though. Plot felt like it could've been stretched into something a bit longer. Maybe if there was a second comic.

Can't say I have strong opinions on the pacing. A lot of that probably has to do with things needing to fit into four issue trades. Starline and Belle haven't worn out their welcome for me yet, but I hope he vanishes for a bit after the Surge and Kit thing wraps up.

[Kazhnuz]

I really like the potential of a Clutch, Rough et Tumble team, especially as it can give more direction to the two skunk brother. About the issue I really liked the characterization of the Chaotix here, they were really fun ! I really like how Evan Stanley characterise the characters, they tend to be a bit more colorful and quirky, and it works a lot to sell them to me.

[Red Hot Jack]

I agree, I also noticed how Evan writes the cast a lot more vibrant and alive than Ian, more fun in general. The Chaotix should do more detective stuff, I also agree on this.

I'm not sure about fun self contained stories to be honest, I like them but they are also pointless, leading nowhere, I really prefer this format even if the pacing is strange, slow at times and the good stuff is being saved for a miniseries.

Belle and Starline are still to me, the most interesting thing in this season. But yeah I am starting to get bored of them, thankfully Belle's arc is ending next issue.

I also heard Ian planned a cool story arc for Surge and Kit that Sega rejected and instead opted for something which made Ian say "ok, this is just the DBZ clone saga". I am kinda worried Sega killed the plot.

[Kazhnuz]

Does the info comes from a bumblekast ? But TBH, it doesn't worry me too much, rejecting plot is kinda part of the norm, and if we don't know what was the exact plot, we don't know exactly why it was rejected, and what it would have been. Eclipse exists because SEGA rejected a Mephiles+Black Doom plot (which might be one of their best decision lol), so it's difficult to already say ""SEGA killed the plot" when we don't know the "plot". Especially as there, the plot have to exists while Evan also have to be able to plan her own stories.

( Especially as for the moment, Imposter Syndrome doesn't seems to have issues that are really outside of Flynn's common issues )

 

I also wonder who will write "Battle for the Empire", if it'll be an Evan Stanley or Ian Flynn issue. I suppose it'll be an Evan Stanley one, as it'll certainly be the conclusion of the Belle storyline.

[StaticMania]

The art for this one is really striking...

Positive praise.

[Slashy]

3 hours ago, StaticMania said:

The art for this one is really striking...

Positive praise.

Yes Hammerstrom is such a good artist even the background shots are fun to look at.

[SanPolo4389]

 

 

[Kuzu]

New preview, Starline shows just how sane and stable he is.

 

[Razule]

Forgot we never saw his immediate reaction to getting dumped. He's definitely completely stable and composed man, superior to Eggman.

The opposite of putting animals into robots.. I assumed the twist will be that they're actually robots despite thinking they're enhanced Sonic's Worldians, but that line makes me think otherwise. Why would he need all that data from Belle to make cyborgs?

[Dr. Detective]

I don't quite feel comfortable referring to this as a filler issue necessarily. Not yet. I need to know what significance Clutch and the Skunk Bros. return is going to lead to but that aside, the issue itself was just tailor made for me simply as a Chaotix fan. Getting to see their interactions usually tends to satisfy me enough so this was a neat, special treat.

I'll say that I do disagree on Starline being the thing that's messing with Year Three for me. His interjections into Chao Races and Zeti Hunt made those stories more pleasantly chaotic to me and I live and breath that kind of stuff. I tend to really like it when the plot of a specific arc has interjections of an overarching plot baked within it. The final two issues of Zeti Hunt were probably the most fun I've had since the Evan stuff began up until this issue because of it.

I will say that the Chao Races arc did suffer from an intense amount of focus issues. I don't think that's Starline or Clutch's fault though. That's more of an issue of not balancing how you're integrating the two plots together well. So, I don't agree that it's not subjective that Starline's mere inclusion is what's at fault here.

There's also the fact that, to me, the most wheel-spinning of the arcs we've had since the end of the Metal Virus was Trial By Fire and that was only three issues with no Starline interjection at all. In my opinion, the pacing is too slow for what these stories are and the release schedule being this glacier paced isn't helping that feel. 

I like how Evan writes the characters but to be honest my favorite arc of this third year so far has been Zeti Hunt, and that was written by Ian. I think I might just find his stories more exciting. 

[KoDaiko]

So were the Skunk bros were initially created to fill in Surge and Kit's place?

8 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

I also heard Ian planned a cool story arc for Surge and Kit that Sega rejected and instead opted for something which made Ian say "ok, this is just the DBZ clone saga". I am kinda worried Sega killed the plot.

Haven't seen the Bumblekast in question, but saw TKP talking about it recently:
"Ian clarified that the original plan for introducing Surge and Kit alongside Starline would, in fact, have meant doing the Imposter Syndrome storyline during the Metal Virus Saga, on top of everything else that was already happening in that arc."

And then Sega gave some alternate story ideas, Ian went with it cuz why not, some readers pointed out the similarities, and now we are here. We dunno how it would've played out so it's kinda harsh to say Sega killed the plot. Tbh I think Sega made the right decision to postpone their introduction. It was either that or Ian going back and fix his Y2 plan (like postponing MV) so it wouldn't be so clustered.

The problem was Ian & Evan had trouble pacing/connecting all the short filler stories with the Starline/IP plot PLUS the milestone buildup, made worse by the fact they decided to retcon add Belle into the mix (iirc she wasn't in the plan originally).