Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Shadowlax]

Forget it

[Marco9966]

SNEAK PEAK OF THE ANNUAL COMIC: Love the drawing and the colors!

This is the first time we see Jack Lawrence's drawing, and Leonardo Ito's colors on Sonic.

 

[Red Hot Jack]

6 hours ago, SSF1991 said:

This, basically. I don't mind the trait at all. It's just that there was that period in the lore of Sonic (mid to late 2000s) where they made it the only thing Amy could do. It's like...Amy's more than just a Sonic fangirl. Sure, it's one of her traits, probably the most well-known trait, but that doesn't mean it should be her only trait. It just got exaggerated all to hell and...yeesh.

Same with Shadow. There was that period when they would basically give him Sonic's role. He'd be the one saving the world. Thankfully, this didn't last as long. Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow's game made sense, but then Sonic 06 just gave me the feeling that this was overkill. It turned into an overused Sonic trope, similar to the whole "Eggman awakens godly monster, gets betrayed, godly monster gets defeated" trope that SEGA used a lot back then.

Fortunately, SEGA hasn't gone down that road anymore. Ever since Sonic Lost World (I don't count Colors and Generations because they had next to no presence in those games) Amy and Shadow has been well done in the lore of Sonic. And, like i said, the comics have basically taken advantage of this and really executed it well. IDW Sonic is easily the best I've seen main series Shadow and Amy written in years.

We need more posts like this. Sorry to say but the current state of the thread is "over analyzing details and character behaviour and twisting them with the help of fan obsession". Now, call me a Flynn fanboy all you want, but I think he's doing a decent job. Better than other writers. And while I disagree partially with Donnie as Sega hasn't been focusing on Amy at all, only in Boom and her personality generally changed into a token girl and with minor roles, Shadow has been handled really well IMO in Forces and the comics, he has been more of a focus recently, even in TSR . You can tell it's Shadow. Amy... she's perfect in the comics.

[Sonic Fan J]

So I'm a little late to things but I wanted to address the Amy topic and the preview just a little bit so..,

Spoiler

On ‎1‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 4:08 PM, kimplix said:

I don't like seeing Amy behind a desk effectively being a paper pusher.
Now don't get me wrong about her being a part of "The Restoration" as I highly agree that that is something Amy would get herself involved, my problem lies in presenting her in a paper pushing position. Amy is supposed to love adventure to some capacity and as a result I feel in a leader position she would fit in better as a field leader than a desk leader. Sure it plays off of her role in Forces and how the comic has already presented her being the brains and order that kept the Resistance functioning cohesively, but I still feel like showing her behind a desk buries her love of adventure. To me Amy is more likely to be out and about traveling from town to town to get a first hand idea of what is going and keeping everything organized through a Tails made communicator and all purpose personal assistant both to satisfy her love of adventure but also to better empathize with the plights of the people. She can't really do that behind a desk and I would have rather seen frame showing her talking with people outside in a town looking at what work needs to be done. Of course in the long run this is a pretty minor complaint since Amy is off adventuring with Sonic again in no time, but it just bothered me seeing her behind a desk as I view Amy as a field leader and not a desk leader in the scenario that the name "The Restoration" calls to mind.

On non spoiler conversations I just want to say that I would loathe seeing Amy's crush outright removed. It is a core component of her character since she is supposed to be both the female lead and primary love interest (let's not get into how that is portrayed please). I get that Amy's crush can be a bit suffocating when it is flanderized beyond reason, but as her love of Sonic is both one of her primary motivations and inspirations and part of what justifies her inclusions in Sonic's stories I would hate to see it go. Does that mean that it doesn't need to be handled differently? I definitely wouldn't say that. If anything, I find Amy's crush and her being a Genki Girl should result in simply silly and playful moments that should never be overbearing or overstay their welcomes. To me, at it's best I would say that Amy's crush plays well in two different ways. 1) is when she actually catches up with Sonic she ends up acting like an excited puppy who's glad to see their person come home and naturally is overbearing which is due both to her own energetic nature and how hard Sonic can be to catch up with so she naturally goes overboard. The only time this get's particularly annoying to is when she immediately comes out with lines demanding Sonic marry her and otherwise, to me those work best with way 2). While Sonic typically doesn't handle Amy's excited puppy reactions upon catching up with him their dynamic usually changes quite a bit once Amy's been in Sonic's presence long enough to calm down. At that point the two of them typically get into playful teasing of each other with none of Amy's advances ever being intended to be received as more than playful teasing regardless of any sincerity behind her statements. So far I'd say that Ian Flynn has never had a problem capturing that (and Tyson Heese nailed it pretty good to in Mania Adventures Episode 6 with the flower moment) so I'm not particularly concerned about how Sonic and Amy's game of cat and mouse will be handled under his pen, but I definitely would not like to see it go especially considering Amy's supposed roles of female lead and primary love interest. Now all of that said let me just make sure to be clear that I have nothing against seeing Amy going off to do her own thing, especially since after Adventure she has supposedly wanted to earn Sonic's respect and having her own adventures and having stories of such to share with him when she does catch up is a way to do that. 

[SBR2]

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

SNEAK PEAK OF THE ANNUAL COMIC: Love the drawing and the colors!

This is the first time we see Jack Lawrence's drawing, and Leonardo Ito's colors on Sonic.

 

Holy cow that looks so good. Lawrence's render is amazing and I love Ito's colors. 

[DabigRG]

13 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

That being said, he does bring up a good point. Amy is very blatantly being written as a stand in for Sally being the leader of a large group like this.

Yeah, that, while much less so than the Blaze thing I mentioned, kinda feels like Mr. Ian Flynn still has a extra bit of Archie on the brain.

13 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Not that its a bad thing mind you, because I do feel Amy would very much be interested in helping people around world and would have no qualms about leading people to do so. Just because her main trait is loving Sonic doesn't mean she isn't allowed to do anything else. That's not how dynamic characterization works.

I think people are too caught up in what these characters "shouldn't" do instead of what they can do. I mean...how is Amy supposed to be written if what Ian is doing is "wrong".

 

12 hours ago, StaticMania said:

This mindset is why that little back n forth even happened.

These character's base traits are so simple that there are very natural extensions that can be added to them without feeling OOC.

Amy's Role so far is fine, it fits the character. This restoration project being her idea specifically is good, it IS what she "should" do.

This across the board.

It's also what seems to be going on with Cream in the recent thread, for example.

12 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Not to mention that there can be more than one type of leader. So, not really seeing Amy as a stand in for Sally.

It should also be noted that Sally’s leadership involved political diplomacy, whereas we can probably assume that Eggman wiped out any other political authority during the war that such is rendered moot.

Pretty much.

This is technically part of why I ultimately didn't mind Knuckles being the Commander in Forces.

10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Characters should never drop their OG traits, unless their OG traits is specifically what made them bad.

Amy's crush on Sonic didn't make her bad, it was just Flanderization that made it bad.

The thing to do then is when going for a fix or "re-railing" a character is to just sprinkle it back in.

Or if those OG traits might gel a little awkwardly with the character's developed if not reasonably mitigated a bit.

[Red Hot Jack]

I love Amy in issue 9 and she is nothing like Sally. They are extremely different in the same position, Amy's strategy is "Tails, think of something smart". And it's a lot more entertaining and colorful.

[Silvereyes]

As per usual, I am very late to the party as my issues of #12 and the TSR special only arrived today. Yeah, I've gotta agree with the consensus on the Team Sonic Racing one shot, pretty mediocre. Good artwork, and I do like the fact that another writer aside from Ian Flynn is having a stab at it. Yes, some of the dialogue is stilted, and the plot is basically non-existent, but frankly, assuming that Sega told IDW they wern't allowed to just adapt the actual TSR story in fear of spoiling it, and the fact it is a racing game, I'm hesitant to really put any blame on the creators of it. I'd happily like the people who worked on this and who aren't already regulars for the main book to have another shot at Sonic in the future, hopefully on something not a tie-in.

I think Omega and Rouge get the best lines, Eggman is as enjoyable as ever, Sonic and Shadow getting overly competitive with each other is funny. The only eyebrow raising bit was how dour Silver was, did he wake up on the wrong side of the bed that day? But yeah, not the greatest, especially for a slightly longer and slightly more expensive book. Maybe it would of been better if it had 2 stories, maybe involving 2 races? Like the first involve Team Sonic, Team Shadow and Eggman, and the second story being a more goofy look at Team Rose and Team Vector? Just a thought. Easily the low point of the IDW run, but again, it is a tie-in, and frankly whenever Archie did tie-ins, 90% of them either sucked or were just there. I think the very ambitious Adventure adaptation was the only time it ever raised the bar on that sortof thing.

(Speaking of Archie tie-ins, here is how in the Triple Trouble Special they showed the levels for that game. I don't think TSR is the most blatant at advertising the features of the game in issue.)

Issue #12 though continues the high standard for the main book for me. I like it when we have quietier issues, and I don't have any problem with an issue basically being an epilogue for season 1 and a prologue for season 2. Hell, unless I'm mistaken, this is the first IDW issue which doesn't have any real action scenes, just lots of talking with Sonic talking to all his friends and what they are going to do after this whole battle, to Eggman talking to his new minions about his future evil plans. There may not be a huge amount to talk about this issue, but I think it is important to just have breathing room. Not to mention Ian Flynn just excels in my opinion at the character interactions, one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to the annual's multiple stories.

I feel pretty excited for season 2. Season 1 had so much setup, but from what we know of the next 4 issues, it seems like it is just going to be focusing on the characters we have already, hopefully leading to more interesting interactions and great action utilising our colourful heroes, especially with Eggman now back. Really my only issue with IDW Sonic is how much of a slow burn it has been, but I'm hoping season 2 will rememdy that complaint since it seems like there are no more chess pieces to introduce, so now it is just seeing those chess pieces used in an exciting game. I look forward to the future.

Speaking of the future, I am very happy about the 2019 Annual. It sounds like alot of fun, and I really hope this becomes a permanent feature. I find the Tangle and Whisper mini-series interesting too. I didn't see it coming, but honestly, the more I think about it, the more sense it makes to me. Yes, it is an exagerration to claim that these 2 are fan favourites, but what they are is interesting by virtue of being new. As it stands right now, we only have a racing game on the horizon, and the only new character to come out of that is the race organiser, who I'd bet money on will probably never turn up again outside of a TSR sequel. And we now have a comic far more tightly connected to the games than Archie's run, even after reboot still featured a ton of original comic characters and the Freedom Fighters, whereas in IDW Tangle and Whisper are the minority new heroes mixed in with a majority of main stay heroes.

I see it as striking while the iron is hot, taking a brand new feature which has been positively received and giving it a focus, probably using a mini series as a way to guage how much interest there is in 2 new characters, and perhaps if it is feasible for a second Sonic book to be running. It reminds of early Archie, where we got a Sally, a Tails, a Knuckles miniseries, and in fact Knuckles got a second miniseries, with that mini series turning into his main book where they just kept the numbering onwards. I doubt that will happen here, but who knows.

Arguably at the height of Archie Sonic's output in the 90s, we had Sonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles the Echidna and a Sonic Super Special issue every quarter. The only other time that output was matched was the brief period when Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Universe and Sonic Boom were all running. I can't help but wonder if maybe in 2 or 3 years, we could hit a time where we have 2 Sonic books, an Annual and a tie-in book for whatever game Sega is making at the time. I am very curious to see this mini series, not just to see how financially well it hits, but also because I do enjoy these 2 characters so far, and would love to see them get some of their own screentime.

I feel optimistic about the future for the IDW run. The only way it would be even better for me would be if my own favourites Tails and Blaze got some plots to themselves.

[Your Vest Friend]

From Evan Stanley's Twitter, here's a preview of the Silver and Blaze annual story. 

Also, need to tag it appropriately.

@azoo

That should do it.

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

From Evan Stanley's Twitter, here's a preview of the Silver and Blaze annual story. 

Also, need to tag it appropriately.

@azoo

That should do it.

...Hauh?

 

[StaticMania]

Yeesh, not a fan of where that's going.

It's all icky.

[SBR2]

49 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Yeesh, not a fan of where that's going.

It's all icky.

It's 2 out of context panels with no dialogue. I think it's a little early to judge. 

[StaticMania]

Maybe for someone else.

Seeing those 2 together at any point is a no go.

It's cute though.

[Kellodrawsalot]

2 hours ago, SBR2 said:

It's 2 out of context panels with no dialogue. I think it's a little early to judge. 

Agreed,
Very well drawn can't wait to know more about the context of the story!

[Marco9966]

7 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

From Evan Stanley's Twitter, here's a preview of the Silver and Blaze annual story. 

Also, need to tag it appropriately.

@azoo

That should do it.

I know it's by Evan and Gigi, but who does what? Who does story, art, and color in this story?

[Gumbit]

7 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

From Evan Stanley's Twitter, here's a preview of the Silver and Blaze annual story. 

Also, need to tag it appropriately.

@azoo

That should do it.

I feel like there will be romantic moment between Silver and blaze , but I could be wrong .

[Silvereyes]

9 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

From Evan Stanley's Twitter, here's a preview of the Silver and Blaze annual story. 

D'aaw, that is pretty adorable.

[Red Hot Jack]

I think a lot of people dislike this pairing because it reduces Blaze to a sidekick. This is only true for Sonic 06 than most of their appearances where they are equal IMO.

[Gumbit]

29 minutes ago, Jack the Shadow said:

I think a lot of people dislike this pairing because it reduces Blaze to a sidekick. This is only true for Sonic 06 than most of their appearances where they are equal IMO.

I'm not fan of this pairing , but judge from this scene , it's kinda like there will be shipping tease , I still could be wrong .

[SBR2]

All we know is that they're tending a garden. I mean it could be kinda shippy and admittedly the "No Shipping" thing is just a personal rule of Ian's but still it could be platonic.  

[Razule]

Fluffy friendship stuff that could potentially be interpreted as ship fuel. Having two characters interact at all will be seen as shipping for some.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I know it's by Evan and Gigi, but who does what? Who does story, art, and color in this story?

I think Gigi is writing and Evan is doing the art.

[SBR2]

1 hour ago, Razule said:

Fluffy friendship stuff that could potentially be interpreted as ship fuel. Having two characters interact at all will be seen as shipping for some.

...Yeah that's a good point. Hell I'll admit I read a lot of Sonic and Rouge scenes as flirty. XD

[Kellodrawsalot]

I always notice whenever a female character or male character share a moment that could be easily seen as friendship or support people are quick to assume its shipping material. 

Heck I have seen people arguing that one ship in BNHA was going to be canon because ''they were standing next to one another''   Anyway always great to see Evan's work.

[thumbs13]

Any interaction between any two characters is considered shipping. I'm not surprised this is being called that, but really?