Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Osmium]

Just now, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Really? Cause I was poking fun at how that doesn't work when you try to reverse it on those that are more open-minded to such things. Coulda fooled me.

I almost added to my post "guess the joke's on me since everyone seemed happy with the idea, lmao" XP 

[Zaysho]

Okay, enough already.

The Archie book being cancelled is still a sore spot for a lot of people (it certainly is for me), and I know we all have our preferences, but is there any way to continue this discussion without either calling other people who don't share a particular vision selfish or whatever, or the meta commentary mocking the one side? Like, shit, guys, we don't even have a book yet.

Let's just take a step back, 'kay?

[SonicComicFanboy]

Just now, ShroomZed said:

I almost added to my post "guess the joke's on me since everyone seemed happy with the idea, lmao" XP 

 I would be legitimatly happy.  But i'm a big nerd who loves franchises that can embrace their legacy while still moving forward without sweeping everything older then 5-10 years ago under the rug.

 

 

Honestly the perfect Sonic Comic for me would be an unholy mish mash of Every character from SEGA & SATAM, to Fleetway, Boom & AOSTH to X & the OVA.  Maybe even Sleet & Dingo from Underground for the heck of it! XD

[Korke]

So, what direction is SEGA going to point at? Cringe-worthy edge like Forces will probably be, or the uninteresting game plots we've been getting in the last couple of years? Tough decision...

I don't want Flynn back. I understand the mandates are limiting, but if they made Ian so handicapped back in time, now it's gonna get even tougher.

Personally I'm not optimistic about the new comics. If I have to bet, we'll be getting standalone arcs, just like the games, with no connection to each other, because the most popular post-reboot arc was Champions, which was in essence, exactly that. Hopefully I'm wrong about this one.

Oh, also, I think you guys should take it easier when it comes to this new FF conflict in thread. If you are in doubt, just imagine that instead of those, it's your favorite character that is going to be erased forever, never to be seen again. Would you kick off the dust that easily?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I honestly don't care for the Fleetway characters, but I'm not really against seeing them come back if they had a chance to do so anymore than other characters. Just let me have the characters I like and see them in action, and everyone else can enjoy the ones they like I say. 

So, what direction is SEGA going to point at? Cringe-worthy edge like Forces will probably be, or the uninteresting game plots we've been getting in the last couple of years? Tough decision...

I don't want Flynn back. I understand the mandates are limiting, but if they made Ian so handicapped back in time, now it's gonna get even tougher.

Hard to say what direction, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on it being anything that draws me in as much as what the comics originally had going for them. If Ian's not back for it, then that makes it even less likely I'll be interested in it. Not that it's impossible, but honestly Ian worked a lot of magic on making things I didn't care for something I eventually ended up liking a lot. He's the only writer that made me like Big the cat, and that was a tough sell as it is. And while he fumbled a lot of things, he didn't do so to the extent that Sega have for a while, personally speaking.

[Zaysho]

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I doubt Archie's Chaotix did much to prepare people for detective Vector, ninja Espio, six-year-old Charmy, and no Mighty.

Pretty sure characters can exist with multiple interpretations across various continuities. I don't think the comic had anything to do with keeping those characters relevant before Heroes, but I don't think it hurt to keep them around either and I'm sure some people who only read the comic did recognize them. That said, I don't believe most people care if they're different (never mind Archie went out of their way to align those characters with the updated presentations, even though Charmy got the short end of the stick, but even Flynn has admitted that was a mistake on his part)

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Post-Reboot in itself showed that a lot of fans didn't care if they were different as long as they were still around and well written.

Rotor never had a father in the cartoons that we knew of, Sally was far less of a Sue than she was in the comics, Antoine actually did some helpful shit more often than not while being scared as opposed to being a cowardly French stereotype, and Bunnie had a much more detailed background over her cybernetics that were made to save her life as opposed to being nearly roboticized against her will (unless I'm remembering that part wrong). EDIT: Oh, and NICOLE never really had a form other than being just a handheld.

Fans of these characters were just glad to have them back, and with fresh new takes. If anything, people cared more if they were lost if the outcry from the reboot losing many characters was any indicator.

And in the Chaotix case, they were plenty prepared for that change in those characters, although it's arguable if it was actually handled well.

[Sonictrainer]

Does IDW do off panels?

[Zaysho]

9 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

And in the Chaotix case, they were plenty prepared for that change in those characters, although it's arguable if it was actually handled well.

re: the Chaotix, the only one I remember making sense to me was Vector--he just trained for a year and bulked up. They added the detective tidbit later as something he wanted to do on the side, presumably when he wasn't on the frontlnes, to the point of taking Ray on as a protege. I'm actually not sure about the rest, other than Espio suddenly taking on ninja training only for it to be explained years later under another writer. And Charmy? Uh, yeah. Probably should've just played with his dialogue and give him a more free-spirited personality  (it's not like he didn't have a playfulness to him when he was first introduced) without zapping his brain.

Though as out there as Espio's deal was, it was weirdly my favorite among them.

[Celestia]

My stance on this is that generally people care more about the characters than the specific details about them. Like, I hardly see people who are genuinely attached to the idea of Sonic being a Freedom Fighter, let alone the DiC characters being main characters who must be around at all times, forever. The only consistent attachment is to the characters themselves, and I think even people who may have specific ideas of what these characters should be like and/or how they should be used would be willing to compromise on things.

Yes, you'd disappoint some fans by changing aspects of these characters or by not having them around all the time. But you'd also disappoint people by not having them at all. Or having them and using them the same way, for that matter. This isn't an "ugh Sonic fans" thing cuz this goes for anything really.

4 minutes ago, Korke said:

Personally I'm not optimistic about the new comics. If I have to bet, we'll be getting standalone arcs, just like the games, with no connection to each other, because the most popular post-reboot arc was Champions, which was in essence, exactly that. Hopefully I'm wrong about this one.

I'm expecting this and personally, I'm looking forward to it if that's how it turns out. If the book Sonic is travelling around and ending up in various adventures, with relatively short (2-4 issue) arcs, I think a more "episodic" style could work really well. If there's no ongoing arcs or continuity at all that'd be kind of a shame, admittedly...I guess we'll see.

That, and if the solicits for cancelled issues of Archie Sonic are any indication, we may have been heading in a direction sort of like that anyway. Issues 292, 293, and 294 were all one shot stories, and that may have been a hint towards Ian's intended direction. (Tho' it may have just been some breather issues after the Unleashed arc fatigue.)

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

re: the Chaotix, the only one I remember making sense to me was Vector--he just trained for a year and bulked up. They added the detective tidbit later as something he wanted to do on the side, presumably when he wasn't on the frontlnes, to the point of taking Ray on as a protege. I'm actually not sure about the rest, other than Espio suddenly taking on ninja training only for it to be explained years later under another writer. And Charmy? Uh, yeah. Probably should've just played with his dialogue and give him a more free-spirited personality  (it's not like he didn't have a playfulness to him when he was first introduced) without zapping his brain.

Though as out there as Espio's deal was, it was weirdly my favorite among them.

I thought that Ian was real subtle with how he handled Espio as, to my knowledge, there wasn't really any contradiction to what Ian added in order to make him a ninja like his game counterpart. Mind you, Espio was already somewhat of a ninja (minus the weapons) given how he would turn invisible to his advantage and blindside someone. He didn't really have that much of a background that rigidly defined him, so it was easy to just add the ninja stuff to him as Ian fleshed and reorganized the Pre-reboot continuity with what he had.

Granted, it was sudden, but hardly anyone raised a stink over it compared to how Charmy was handled in making him like his game counterpart.

[Flyinpenguin117]

36 minutes ago, Celestia said:

That, and if the solicits for cancelled issues of Archie Sonic are any indication, we may have been heading in a direction sort of like that anyway. Issues 292, 293, and 294 were all one shot stories, and that may have been a hint towards Ian's intended direction. (Tho' it may have just been some breather issues after the Unleashed arc fatigue.)

It was probably the latter. Put out some filler to hold readers over before the next major arc starts up, delve into some backstories more (Bunnie, Antoine), and tie up some loose ends (Nicole's handheld being destroyed). 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

Regarding some fan factions. Sega Purist and SatAM/Early Archie Hardliner are equally annoying to me.  And I'm a big fan of the Sonic franchise as a whole. I like the games. I like SatAM & Archie and more.

 

6 hours ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

It was probably the latter. Put out some filler to hold readers over before the next major arc starts up, delve into some backstories more (Bunnie, Antoine), and tie up some loose ends (Nicole's handheld being destroyed). 

I think Ian wanted to do more smaller, character focused stories.

[Salamander]

I strongly suspect that all non-game material, and all Archie material especially, will be wiped from the slate now, since so much of it appears to be subject to dubious old contracting and legal tussles.  But I hope IDW tries to make use of the obscure older game characters, too, to enrich the universe a little; I do think that all of Sonic's video game history should be available to be drawn upon, and I think that people expect that kind of thing from comics.  After all, some of the older characters would be functionally no different from original characters at this point, which will certainly be allowed - so why not use characters with a few fans already, which adherents of Sonic's history will appreciate, which have that resonance?  Where appropriate and relevant, of course.  Otherwise, you might as well toss Sonic out and start a comic about a new character entirely.

[Your Vest Friend]

8 hours ago, Diogenes said:

There's no need to keep the characters "alive" in a comic, they can just revive them whenever they want. It can be detrimental, even, if the comic takes the characters in a different direction from what they want to do with them in the games. I doubt Archie's Chaotix did much to prepare people for detective Vector, ninja Espio, six-year-old Charmy, and no Mighty.

Before I go on, I'll state that I'm reblogging because this is very true. Especially considering that if they were revived (talking about the scrapped characters), they'd probably be very unlike what the comic has presented even recently due to what SEGA would take from the prior history. If they ignored Chaotix to get Mighty, for example, you wouldn't get the pacifist the Archie comic had for god knows how long. 

But yeah, a couple of fact statements;

1. Archie was hardly the only thing keeping some of these scrappees alive, or on the inverse did very little to preserve them. Sonic The Comic has as much a hand in many of the characters' preservation before it ended publication as Archie, and by the time it did end publication the Chaotix were in Heroes and it was that that really sparked interest in the whole "well if they revived them they can revive x" thing. On the other hand, the concepts of Tails Adventure and Tails Skypatrol weren't in the comic for a long time, so it's not like the Archie comic was carrying them along. And the scrapped band characters/Madonna were so minor that they weren't carried by the comic at all. This applies even more to Sonic R, as the Tails Doll is way more famous for its creepypasta than its brief Archie stints. 

2. I really don't think the Chaotix situation went about as people think it did. It seems after the failure of Sonic X-Treme, they set about doing a pseudo-reboot, which included drawing up a design document of what they could use. I don't think it's that they stayed dead all those years and then Sonic Team were like "let's revive them!", moreso that they were always on the design document and they were waiting for a suitable time to reuse those concepts, which happened to be in the second main game to come out after Adventure. There was really only about a three/four year-turnaround from the release of Adventure (which established everything again) and the beginning of the production of Heroes (which brought them back into the fold). 

[Kfarc]

From what I remember from BumbleKast: Those smaller stories were made to fill a space and to lead up to issue 300 where a new saga would begin. 

And regarding a current situation: It's a good thing Sonic/SEGA found a new publisher. From what I can say, IDW are doing a very good job on their Transformers, G.I. Joe and TMNT books. If they'll make something like that (Especialy Transformers/Hasbro universe) with Sonic, I'll be happy. For first few issues I would expect them to retell some of the games while establishing the universe: bassicly what Mr. Flynn was doing with Mega Man comics. But who knows. At this moment we only know an editor and his most important  work until this moment was DC's Vertigo, so we can predict nothing based on that alone (Vertigo is as far from Sonic as it gets). I will wait and monitor their Creative team anouncments. Maybe then we will be able to predict a direction of Sonic comics.

Sorry for gramatical/spelling mistakes, if there are any.

[RedFox99]

1 hour ago, Kfarc said:

From what I remember from BumbleKast: Those smaller stories were made to fill a space and to lead up to issue 300 where a new saga would begin. 

And regarding a current situation: It's a good thing Sonic/SEGA found a new publisher. From what I can say, IDW are doing a very good job on their Transformers, G.I. Joe and TMNT books. If they'll make something like that (Especialy Transformers/Hasbro universe) with Sonic, I'll be happy. For first few issues I would expect them to retell some of the games while establishing the universe: bassicly what Mr. Flynn was doing with Mega Man comics. But who knows. At this moment we only know an editor and his most important  work until this moment was DC's Vertigo, so we can predict nothing based on that alone (Vertigo is as far from Sonic as it gets). I will wait and monitor their Creative team anouncments. Maybe then we will be able to predict a direction of Sonic comics.

Sorry for gramatical/spelling mistakes, if there are any.

Yeah it's hard to say what this "new direction" is. I don't know when we'll get more news but has anyone asked the editor about what he knows so far about the comic.

Maybe after awhile IDW could talk to Sega and Archie to release the finished comics and maybe they could make a spin-off series focusing on the FFs after the events of the Shattered World crisis.

[SonicComicFanboy]

Personally I still just have a nagging feeling that the "new direction" will be tonal.  I feel no matter what characters they do or don't use the book will be more light-hearted in tone.   Which again isn't nessicarilly a bad thing, but would all depend on the compitence of whatever team they get behind it.

[Dr. Detective]

19 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Shy of going back to ground zero, i.e. before the first game and anyone has met anyone or done anything at all, I feel like the reboot was as much a blank slate as we're likely to see.

And yeah, the second part was in service to that. I mean, take out the Freedom Fighters -- and, if it serves well, the backdrop of most of the games having already happened -- and there is still a ton of stuff that was newly introduced and only lightly touched on. Having to start all over again just sounds tiresome.

I mean, I guess if we did dial everything back to very much zero, that might kinda work, but still.

I understand now. 

I still have to disagree though. It'd be tiresome for me only if they started offer in the same exact way that the reboot did. Even though I ended up enjoying the newly created world a lot more than the old one, the way it was initially handled felt very sloppy and confused. It just shoved us into a situation that was in media res with a bunch of characters that were holdovers from the old continuity but with different personas and different motivations that weren't very well explained. Information about the world took forever to drip feed to us which, if it truly was just starting off, wouldn't have been a problem. The world and the story was treating itself like a continuation rather than an actual do-over or beginning of a tale. Getting rid of a lot of the other characters from the other continuity didn't make that easier to follow either. If anything it only served to confuse things a bit more trying to figure out who was still around and who was still relevant. And when you found out who was still relevant you had to deal with trying to find out what their new positions within the story were, something completely unnecessary had it really just been an entirely new story. 

That's not even going into the weird "Let's pass NICOLE around like a hot potato and get our memories of the other continuity back only to forget about it later" thing they did. Seeing Sonic get happy that Uncle Chuck was still around, seeing his confusion at Mutsuki's new design, and not having any mention or concern for his parents were all three different reactions to three different sets of characters that were juggled between everyone in a very strange manner that made things feel really cluttered and a bit overwhelming.

It may have been a reboot but it was a bit soft when it came to a few things. The jumble of confusion I had to sit through at the beginning of it all before it lowered to a mild "Oh, so this is what's different about this thing now" as the book went on wasn't that pleasant of a feeling.

I'd really just prefer an actual clean slate compared to that. That other thing we got definitely wasn't that. 

[Dr. Detective]

13 hours ago, Zaysho said:

Pretty sure characters can exist with multiple interpretations across various continuities. I don't think the comic had anything to do with keeping those characters relevant before Heroes, but I don't think it hurt to keep them around either and I'm sure some people who only read the comic did recognize them. That said, I don't believe most people care if they're different (never mind Archie went out of their way to align those characters with the updated presentations, even though Charmy got the short end of the stick, but even Flynn has admitted that was a mistake on his part)

I can't speak for everyone but I certainly cared that they were different. And apparently how different they were accounted for a lot because after the reboot happened, all of a sudden the Chaotix started to be a lot more prominent than they were before, which I was certainly very grateful for. Growing up with them as Detectives mattered immensely to me. And the bitterness I had (and still have) towards Mighty wasn't helping me get over how prominent and pushed he was compared to the other three. 

 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I understand now. 

I still have to disagree though. It'd be tiresome for me only if they started offer in the same exact way that the reboot did. Even though I ended up enjoying the newly created world a lot more than the old one, the way it was initially handled felt very sloppy and confused. It just shoved us into a situation that was in media res with a bunch of characters that were holdovers from the old continuity but with different personas and different motivations that weren't very well explained. Information about the world took forever to drip feed to us which, if it truly was just starting off, wouldn't have been a problem. The world and the story was treating itself like a continuation rather than an actual do-over or beginning of a tale. Getting rid of a lot of the other characters from the other continuity didn't make that easier to follow either. If anything it only served to confuse things a bit more trying to figure out who was still around and who was still relevant. And when you found out who was still relevant you had to deal with trying to find out what their new positions within the story were, something completely unnecessary had it really just been an entirely new story. 

That's not even going into the weird "Let's pass NICOLE around like a hot potato and get our memories of the other continuity back only to forget about it later" thing they did. Seeing Sonic get happy that Uncle Chuck was still around, seeing his confusion at Mutsuki's new design, and not having any mention or concern for his parents were all three different reactions to three different sets of characters that were juggled between everyone in a very strange manner that made things feel really cluttered and a bit overwhelming.

It may have been a reboot but it was a bit soft when it came to a few things. The jumble of confusion I had to sit through at the beginning of it all before it lowered to a mild "Oh, so this is what's different about this thing now" as the book went on wasn't that pleasant of a feeling.

I'd really just prefer an actual clean slate compared to that. That other thing we got definitely wasn't that. 

Okay, I think I get what you mean-- the coming in mid-story, "hit the ground running" aspect? I can appreciate that.

Still, with a franchise like Sonic and if it's trying to keep up with the games (perhaps even at SEGA's insistence), I feel like that's hard to avoid unless we just dialed everything back to ground zero.

And I'm not even opposed to that, but I'm not sure SEGA even knows where ground zero is (SEGA CD references aside). The logical place is Sonic 1, but to hear Sonic Team/Iizuka talk about it, it might as well be Sonic Adventure.

Man, this franchise can be such a headache. I love it, almost all of it individually, but sometimes I think Sonic Team's globalization just wrecked everything.

[RedFox99]

So when do you think they'll make more announcements about the new comic?

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Okay, I think I get what you mean-- the coming in mid-story, "hit the ground running" aspect? I can appreciate that.

Still, with a franchise like Sonic and if it's trying to keep up with the games (perhaps even at SEGA's insistence), I feel like that's hard to avoid unless we just dialed everything back to ground zero.

And I'm not even opposed to that, but I'm not sure SEGA even knows where ground zero is (SEGA CD references aside). The logical place is Sonic 1, but to hear Sonic Team/Iizuka talk about it, it might as well be Sonic Adventure.

Man, this franchise can be such a headache. I love it, almost all of it individually, but sometimes I think Sonic Team's globalization just wrecked everything.

I'm not really asking for anything too strict. The general basis of what Sonic is and what he does isn't that hard for people to figure out. For example, I'd be much more comfortable should this new comic begin in a manner similar to how Sonic X started where Eggman has kidnapped Cream and he's about to use the Chaos Emeralds for something evil. It's pretty typical but it's a nice way to generalize what Sonic is at the start. What kind of story you tell going forward is completely up to you. There's no inherent need to worry too much about the world building aside from what's been established by the games.

That might be where the main stream of concern comes in. If they truly do end up just being about a branching off story that uses the games as a basis, what about the games would they need to inform us about beforehand. Stuff like Shadow's backstory and the events of Sonic Adventure seems pretty crucial for instance. Sort of. They could always just adapt them in their own weird ways but I'm not too certain I'd like to see that.

The most comfortable scenario for me personally would be if they just pretended that all the stuff in the games happened already and just went on telling their own story from that point onward but that has a chance of not being conducive to an audience that's trying to just get into the comic. Little blurbs that say "Happened back in Sonic Adventure 2" whenever a character references something might help but it also might not.

[SBR2]

You know the more I think about it the more I think it's possible for concepts from Archie to stick around. I mean fashionista Honey and Team Hooligan's aren't exactly what I'd call purely Archie exclusive ideas. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'm not really asking for anything too strict. The general basis of what Sonic is and what he does isn't that hard for people to figure out. For example, I'd be much more comfortable should this new comic begin in a manner similar to how Sonic X started where Eggman has kidnapped Cream and he's about to use the Chaos Emeralds for something evil. It's pretty typical but it's a nice way to generalize what Sonic is at the start. What kind of story you tell going forward is completely up to you. There's no inherent need to worry too much about the world building aside from what's been established by the games.

That might be where the main stream of concern comes in. If they truly do end up just being about a branching off story that uses the games as a basis, what about the games would they need to inform us about beforehand. Stuff like Shadow's backstory and the events of Sonic Adventure seems pretty crucial for instance. Sort of. They could always just adapt them in their own weird ways but I'm not too certain I'd like to see that.

The most comfortable scenario for me personally would be if they just pretended that all the stuff in the games happened already and just went on telling their own story from that point onward but that has a chance of not being conducive to an audience that's trying to just get into the comic. Little blurbs that say "Happened back in Sonic Adventure 2" whenever a character references something might help but it also might not.

That's the thing, though -- I don't think there's much distinction, particularly to a newcomer, between coming in and having to look up a game to know the background of where we are, having numerous issues already happened, or just doing as the reboot did. The benefit of the latter is that at least everyone old and new was on equal footing.