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IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread


Dejimon11

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32 minutes ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

GIven how even with his flaws Ian mostly avoids the dumb shit the games tend to do, no it isn’t.

But go ahead and humor us with one.

Okay, I think you might be getting carried away a bit. Not everyone likes Ian's writing.

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18 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Okay, I think you might be getting carried away a bit. Not everyone likes Ian's writing.

And I’m not saying that they should—I wasn’t a fan of his writing in Boom to the point I never read any issue past the first one.

But given his much better history in the franchise compared to the much more divisive Pontac and Graff (who in all fairness don’t deserve so much of the hate given they’re hampered by Sonic Team) or the much less well received Sonic Team themselves (who do deserve the reception given their history), his presence is definitely one of the more positive things to at least look forward to as far as IDW Sonic is concerned, even if it’s not a guarantee that many of us on the pessimistic side will like it upon release.

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52 minutes ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

GIven how even with his flaws Ian mostly avoids the dumb shit the games tend to do, no it isn’t.

But go ahead and humor us with one.

I don't mean to come off as tone-police-y, dude, but this is getting a little antagonistic. I don't care if you have an argument in mind, but try not to bare your teeth at the first sign. Just want to avoid this getting hostile before it starts.

 

19 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Okay, I think you might be getting carried away a bit. Not everyone likes Ian's writing.


I know I've told you this before, but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't backseat moderate. If there is a potential problem, please report it to us and we'll give it a look. Obviously nothing's really happened, yet, but sometimes this sort of thing can cause more problems than it helps and just leaves us with a bigger mess to clean up later.

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24 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

I don't mean to come off as tone-police-y, dude, but this is getting a little antagonistic. I don't care if you have an argument in mind, but try not to bare your teeth at the first sign. Just want to avoid this getting hostile before it starts.

I...wasn’t trying to be hostile than I was blunt.

Maybe I could have said that better, but at the same time I was expecting a flimsy argument. 

So my bad.

EDIT—also, I don’t consider what RedFox99 did as backseat modding. He made a valid point: not everyone likes Ian’s writing, but I wanted to emphasize that there is something to be optimistic about him being involved when even die-hard fans of Ian are—ironically—not looking as forward to this as we were hoping despite him being lead writer.

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5 minutes ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

I...wasn’t trying to be hostile than I was blunt.

Maybe I could have said that better, but at the same time I was expecting a flimsy argument.

Yeah, sorry, if I was being jumpy, you know how these arguments go.

Like I said, I don't mind if you have an argument in mind, and you elaborated on what you think of Flynn's work, I just to want to head this off from people taking potshots at each other. Just speaking from experience, especially with how I used to argue lol

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39 minutes ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

And I’m not saying that they should—I wasn’t a fan of his writing in Boom to the point I never read any issue past the first one.

Wait, didn't he not start writing for the Boom comic until a later issue?

...Or do I have it backwards and it was later that one (or more) of the TV writers got on it?

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14 minutes ago, Celestia said:

Wait, didn't he not start writing for the Boom comic until a later issue?

...Or do I have it backwards and it was later that one (or more) of the TV writers got on it?

I could’ve sworn he was involved on the first issue, but my memory is not too strong on that because that was practically the only issue I read from Boom.

Either way, I wasn’t impressed enough to read the later issues. To say nothing of Megadrive’s second issue being repetitive until then end compared to the first one had a very strong start.

Edit-I looked it up, and yeah he was one of the writers of the first issue.

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Yes. Ian worked on the first issue (or first few) and then later they pulled in some of the TV show writers to work on it and... admittedly it got a lot better when they did. Now, whether or not it was because he wasn't sure how to write for the Boom cast just yet or he was going for something a little too experimental at the time I don't know.

The Sonic Boom episode that Ian wrote is actually one of my favorites though. The one where Tails is acting like Wil E. Coyote and Sonic is the Road Runner and Tails's traps keep failing and he keeps getting more cartoonishly frustrated as it goes on. I love that one.

I've got issues with a lot of the stuff Ian's written, sure. He's not perfect. Years ago, there was a time where I was so consistently frustrated by the book's writing that I was probably a little too heavily critical of stories that looking back on, aren't anywhere near as objectively terrible as I once thought. Some of them I still feel the same about though. Some have actually gotten worse in my mind. Some I took for granted and got even better looking back on them.

I consider him a good writer overall though. I do genuinely feel he does more good than bad on a more consistent basis than not. I also share the opinion that he's one of the best writers for the series too. There might be someone on the Boom cartoon who could do better maybe. I don't know. Maybe Dave Polsky could give it a go. He's a really good writer too. The episode he wrote, "Translate This" is still one of my favorites of the show. 

I'm anticipating seeing where this will go. Knowing Ian, I predict I'll be up and down on his portrayal of Sonic. Be okay with his portrayal of Tails. Love his portrayal of Eggman and all the villains he makes (he's the absolute best we it comes to writing villains. I loved every last one of those Reboot Egg Bosses and it's a crying shame they're all gone now). And I predict he'll find ways to include and give attention too as many of the characters he can because he's at the very least proven to care about giving them all a space to breathe and act, which is something I have immense respect for, especially nowadays... 

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Honestly the characterization is one of Ian's strengths, he wrote some of the best portrayals of Eggman, Knuckles, Amy, Big, Silver, Sticks, Omega, and even Sonic I'd say. The ones I'm not too convinced of are Shadow and Blaze, because both have been underplayed in recent stories, Rouge is okay I guess, aside from the TTT arc she works fine, and Tails... unclear, he is mostly useless in a lot of comics, because he is overshadowed, his role clashes with Rotor (a character I dislike for many reasons, including this one) and Uncle Chuck, there are way too many geniuses in my opinion. I hope Tails gets a better treatment in the future, although I liked him in some arcs like The Tails Adventure, Worlds Collide and Countdown to Chaos.

And of course I love his writing for the original characters and Freedom Fighters, because he goes into their personal stories and does character development for them, including the Egg Bosses who were in very grey situations, I really liked that.

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Oh, am I the only one in here who finds the first Boom issues the funniest ones? Gee I'm really an oddball. :D

Seriously, the first one is the biggest reason why I remember torque is torque in English, since the writing form of the Finnish term is closer to momentum (which is completely different in Finnish too). Go figure. That's enough for me to appreciate it, but I did enjoy reading those first ones even outside that fact. They felt continuity-having yet funny and loose enough for me.

And that bridge-selling one had fun moments too, none of the issues were perfect of course (nothing really is, some stuff just comes pretty close) but some of those were actually funny. I did have few laughs, more than I've had with the TV series anyway.

Just a notion, they haven't shown the 2nd season in here as far as I'm aware of.

5 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

Tails... unclear, he is mostly useless in a lot of comics, because he is overshadowed

I dunno whether or not he was overshadowed really, at least as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's the problem about me being the oddball but never really thought too much about that, I felt as if they all had different specialities, one of those headcanons of mine or something, though I think it was implied in the comics in a way.

Dunno though, people see these things so differently it's sometimes hard to tell who's closer to the most solid reasoning and who isn't. It just didn't hit me that way, even when Tails' prolly one of my biggest game character favourites.

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I've read Ian's Sonic Boom issues (FYI not counting Worlds Unite He did the first four and 6-7) and I really don't get what people are on about with them. The Fourth Wall breaking is there but it's hardly as distracting as people make it out to be and the jokes are more hit than miss for me. But Humors Subjective. Personally I like Broad silly Comedy. 

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12 hours ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

But given his much better history in the franchise compared to the much more divisive Pontac and Graff (who in all fairness don’t deserve so much of the hate given they’re hampered by Sonic Team) or the much less well received Sonic Team themselves (who do deserve the reception given their history), his presence is definitely one of the more positive things to at least look forward to as far as IDW Sonic is concerned, even if it’s not a guarantee that many of us on the pessimistic side will like it upon release.

No point giving you my humorous argument when you literally state that you're okay with sub-par writing, as long as it's better than ST's horrible japanese squad and Pontaff.

 

5 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

Honestly the characterization is one of Ian's strengths, he wrote some of the best portrayals of Eggman, Knuckles, Amy, Big, Silver, Sticks, Omega, and even Sonic I'd say. The ones I'm not too convinced of are Shadow and Blaze, because both have been underplayed in recent stories, Rouge is okay I guess, aside from the TTT arc she works fine, and Tails... unclear, he is mostly useless in a lot of comics, because he is overshadowed, his role clashes with Rotor (a character I dislike for many reasons, including this one) and Uncle Chuck, there are way too many geniuses in my opinion. I hope Tails gets a better treatment in the future, although I liked him in some arcs like The Tails Adventure, Worlds Collide and Countdown to Chaos.

And of course I love his writing for the original characters and Freedom Fighters, because he goes into their personal stories and does character development for them, including the Egg Bosses who were in very grey situations, I really liked that.

 

The end of the FF's might become something good after all, because they were exactly his weakest part of characterization imho. Although a lot of people got annoyed with the worf effect for Blaze in PPP, and Tails getting anti-social being only able to swap words with Sonic, maybe with a smaller cast those could be repaired.

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5 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

his role clashes with Rotor (a character I dislike for many reasons, including this one) and Uncle Chuck, there are way too many geniuses in my opinion.

  MInd elaborate on this/these point?

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Seems self-explanatory to me; they think the core team had too many geniuses.* Something which might not be a problem with IDW considering SEGA's mandate on it. 

 

*I get that Uncle Chuck isn't part of the core team, but I'm guessing they consider him close enough in the web? Unlike someone like Ellidy who keeps to himself and is further away. Or maybe they're talking just amongst the SatAM holdovers. 

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2 hours ago, Korke said:

No point giving you my humorous argument when you literally state that you're okay with sub-par writing, as long as it's better than ST's horrible japanese squad and Pontaff.

 

 

The end of the FF's might become something good after all, because they were exactly his weakest part of characterization imho. Although a lot of people got annoyed with the worf effect for Blaze in PPP, and Tails getting anti-social being only able to swap words with Sonic, maybe with a smaller cast those could be repaired.

I don't think there will be a smaller cast, maybe a smaller main cast, but I assume a lot of new characters will be introduced to populate the world, people love the idea of an extended comic universe and cast.

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3 hours ago, Korke said:

No point giving you my humorous argument when you literally state that you're okay with sub-par writing, as long as it's better than ST's horrible japanese squad and Pontaff.

Which is funny, because I don’t recall stating that I’m okay with sub-par writing because Ian has shown himself to be anything but sub-par.

Especially when I’ve criticized Ian Flynn whenever his writing has shown a lack of quality or was off (i.e. the House of Cards arc, the second half of the Unleashed adaptation where he was rushing to the end, how he underpeformed his handling of Chip in said second half despite the crossover in the middle of the arc, Rouge being crueler than usual in Treasure Team Tango, and a slew of other things).

So how about you actually try making an argument instead of resorting to stawmans when confronted with a rebuttal?

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10 hours ago, Dr. Jack said:

Honestly the characterization is one of Ian's strengths, he wrote some of the best portrayals of Eggman, Knuckles, Amy, Big, Silver, Sticks, Omega, and even Sonic I'd say. The ones I'm not too convinced of are Shadow and Blaze, because both have been underplayed in recent stories, Rouge is okay I guess, aside from the TTT arc she works fine, and Tails... unclear, he is mostly useless in a lot of comics, because he is overshadowed, his role clashes with Rotor (a character I dislike for many reasons, including this one) and Uncle Chuck, there are way too many geniuses in my opinion. I hope Tails gets a better treatment in the future, although I liked him in some arcs like The Tails Adventure, Worlds Collide and Countdown to Chaos.

And of course I love his writing for the original characters and Freedom Fighters, because he goes into their personal stories and does character development for them, including the Egg Bosses who were in very grey situations, I really liked that.

I can't say I agree his portrayal of Sonic is one of the best and while I appreciate some of the things about Omega's personality, I've detailed while I had problems with the way he was included into the comic. The rest of those I generally agree with however. 

As for the ones you're not convinced of, I don't know enough or care enough about Blaze to really notice if he's getting her down right but if she actually is underplayed, it's understandable considering her alternate dimension situation. It's become increasingly obvious to me that they hadn't originally intended on Blaze being as mainstream to the series as she became. Shadow, I don't agree with however. Even in the short run the reboot had, he still managed to get several SU arcs with him at the helm. None of the extended cast from the games actually appeared in the main book anymore after all. Aside from a few lone panels off to the side like the characters watching the tournament in the Champions arc or The Chaotix saying they'll help out along with a bunch of other random people around the world when the Freedom Fighters broadcasted out what was going on with Chip and the broken planet. It didn't lead to anything because none of the people they broadcasted to were actually in the climax of course.

I’m so-so on his portrayal of Tails mostly because it’s kind of hard to get a handle on what he’s supposed to be sometimes. I remember not really liking him in The Tails Adventure because he seemed like he was being portrayed as this hyper confident, super realized, could-do-no-wrong, is completely perfect and unshaken version of himself that kind of felt like it was trying too hard to make him like a mini-Sonic, except not as mean, nerdier, and more refined.

It's kind of like the polar opposite of the kind of Tails that would cover in fear of Chaos 0. Rarely, polar opposite portrayals work out well for me. That’s why I love Tails in Boom as much as I do though I’ve explained why plenty of times by this point.

With Rouge, he's got the general attitude down right but anyone can do that. Even Forces got her general attitude right. It's mostly just what they do with her that's annoying. She has so many occupations under her belt and she plays both sides so well that it always feels like a waste to relegate her to Shadow's sidekick. It's funny because I remember Ian even responding to the criticism that people didn't really like that Rouge was just "Team Mom" for Team Dark, saying criticism like that is why he had the forums around. It seemed like he was willing to try and give her a shot at a different portrayal so who knows.

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27 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

She has so many occupations under her belt and she plays both sides so well that it always feels like a waste to relegate her to Shadow's sidekick.

I'm hoping Ian can write stories where she isn't relegated to a satellite character. She often either interacts with Team Dark or Knuckles. I think Adventures 2 and Battle were the few stories to give her time to develop outside of her interactions with those two.

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Ya know it’s funny how Rouge was a satellite character, but she threw far more weight regardless.

Yeah, Shadow had focus, but she was his commanding officer whenever she was present. She could definitely do more, but that dynamic actually carries pretty well when you give the side character more authority than the main character and give them more agency.

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3 hours ago, Conquering Slay-bell Storm said:

Ya know it’s funny how Rouge was a satellite character, but she threw far more weight regardless.

Yeah, Shadow had focus, but she was his commanding officer whenever she was present. She could definitely do more, but that dynamic actually carries pretty well when you give the side character more authority than the main character and give them more agency.

She... was never the commanding officer. 

Everything they did , even when she tried to give instruction, was something shadow wanted to do. Hell, in their debut , shadow in one fell swoop does her job, and then saves her. Rouge is cool, but she was never the commanding officer... ever. She just suggests things and occasionally shadow might go along with it if he feels like it. For the most part, no one's in charge, they just go on missions someone hatches a plan and they follow. But because shadow is important and people like him, every single misssion is about him. 

But generally because of shadow based story structure shadow goes "Imma DO THE THING " and rouge goes.. " Ok... I guess we are doing that " 

 

Edit: And I want to make this clear, i'm not against rouge being in charge. Personally in my head canon in the future, shadow leaves gun and she's running the place. But she was never commanding officer of shadow, for a few reasons. 

1) Shadow doesn't work for gun, he's just... basically a guy who walks in and they can't stop him. So they point him at shit, and its been working out so they aren't questioning it. I mean he does shit for gun, but he has no rank, no position he can leave whenever he wants does whatever he wants. 

2) How the stories are focused, they are generally about shadow so he's generally the one calling the shots, or just doing the thing in the narrative, even when its not about him. Even in shit like treasure team tango, it ended up about shadow making a moral decision. He's a popular guy and chews up scenery , its one of the reasons I want team dark to separate, so rouge can be cool by herself. 

3) Kind of similar to point one, shadow tends to just... do shit. And rouge has to adapt if she cares enough to do so. Him doing whatever it takes to get the job done, is kind of his characters whole thing and he often... does that. 

Rouge is less a commanding officer and more intell, ( though I would like a character to do that, like a new one a team dark member who does that while rouge gets to be a spy ) she tells them the info, and just lets them handle the shit however they see fit. Shadow could just, leave in the middle of a mission and she couldn't do jack shit

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I dunno if Rouge is necessarily the commanding officer, either, but I think the two of them are on pretty equal terms. She's more tactical, he's more brute strength. I mean, the dude karate chops a keyboard to enter cyberspace, he doesn't strike me as the delicate type so I think they balance out nicely as a team.

 

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

1) Shadow doesn't work for gun, he's just... basically a guy who walks in and they can't stop him. So they point him at shit, and its been working out so they aren't questioning it. I mean he does shit for gun, but he has no rank, no position he can leave whenever he wants does whatever he wants.

He is an agent of GUN. Even the games support this because he's offered a job in ShTH and is actively communicating with the headquarters in '06. I don't think he's just showing up and it works out for them. I know the games are kinda vague and just... make up/drop shit as they go along and the comics were the only medium really doing anything with the idea in a consistent manner, but I don't think it's really... accurate to say he just shows up and they clear the floor? He's not a uniformed grunt/soldier, sure, but an agent is still an agent. If anything, I think your description is more fitting for Omega since, outside the comics, it doesn't seem he really has an affiliation with GUN and Shadow and Rouge recruit him especially when Eggman's involved (er, sometimes anyway).

 

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

2) How the stories are focused, they are generally about shadow so he's generally the one calling the shots, or just doing the thing in the narrative, even when its not about him. Even in shit like treasure team tango, it ended up about shadow making a moral decision. He's a popular guy and chews up scenery , its one of the reasons I want team dark to separate, so rouge can be cool by herself. 

Considering what Rouge was like in the pre-reboot, even under Ian (she is frankly kind of a bitch in that version), and how Shadow cares about protecting everyone and repaying Blaze, he's the only one who could make her stand down (never mind she's just outgunned in that scenario with even Omega disagreeing with her). I guess what I'm getting at there are other reasons that are explained in the stories. He might get used because of his popularity, but I don't think he's just dropped into a story as some end-all, be-all solution to any problem. I mean, he can be reckless or careless too when his ego goes unchecked (like the Eclipse stories). It'd be pretty boring otherwise.

Can't say I'd object to the others getting some solo missions, but I've enjoyed their dynamic the most that it's never really bugged me.

 

 

Oh, and while I'm here

9 hours ago, Korke said:

No point giving you my humorous argument when you literally state that you're okay with sub-par writing, as long as it's better than ST's horrible japanese squad and Pontaff.

I don't know how you can see a moderator post in the same page asking one member not to be hostile about this... and then come in here attack another member's taste because they like the writer you don't. My post may have been directed at one user, but the expectation applies to everyone posting here. If you can't be bothered to have an actual discussion then just move on. Don't do this again.

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16 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

Can't say I'd object to the others getting some solo missions, but I've enjoyed their dynamic the most that it's never really bugged me.

I guess the problem is that to some people, Rouge is often pushed to the sidelines in favor of Shadow getting spotlight and they would like Rouge to get some development outside of Shadow or Knuckles. Granted, the dynamic of Team Dark seems decent enough and I do like Shadouge.

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30 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

 I mean, the dude karate chops a keyboard to enter cyberspace, he doesn't strike me as the delicate type so I think they balance out nicely as a team.

 

 

C-Can we get just a story with Shadow and the Chaotix? :lol:

Edit: Why did this get posted separately? I thought there was an auto-merge on consecutive posts?

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14 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Edit: Why did this get posted separately? I thought there was an auto-merge on consecutive posts?

I removed your other post both for one-word spam and also insulting another member. Don't do it again.

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