Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Shadowlax]

13 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

I would really like to see more of a Sonic & Shadow team up, their banter is really fun. 

I wouldn't. Nothing against sonic, but that knuckles and shadow story spoiled me. Shadow in one story made knuckles consider more things about his reality than sonic did in the entirety of his existence as a thing.

A net benefit in terms of writing I don't think a lot of people consider about shadow's character is that he is weirdly mature, in with situations with knuckles it presents the other character a different perspective on life that would at least get them to think. Sure this could happen with sonic ,but sonic's.... like I'm not gonna say he's " not" a character, he's not as much of a character as some other characters. And I don't think that introspection will happen when he's sonic as apposed to other characters. During the reboot, and shadow before it, but specially during the reboot. I wanted shadow and knuckles to interact with more folks, here was this whole new world of things and they were kinda hold off. And I think shadow in particular could bring an interesting perspective simply by being himself. 

I said this before. But Shadow is weird, and I feel like a good writer would use that to their advantage

[dbzfan7]

1 minute ago, Jack of Tangles said:

That's on Boom, maybe, because he doesn't work for comedy and only shows up for big battles and finales. But in a continuity heavy storyline? Why not? Why does he have to appear less than anyone else? I said he should not get a special treatment, but neither underused, or people will call Ian biased again.

He's not really a character who I see consistently working around Sonic. He works around his own kind of group and set universe. Which revolves around Team Dark and maybe GUN if they still do that. He's less tied to Sonic and what he does, as he basically has his own world. Kinda like Blaze and how she doesn't tag along as she has her own things she does. Though when I say universe and world in regards to Shadow, I mean metaphorically. Sonic does his thing, Shadow does his own thing. Sonic is more free spirit, hero, adventurer explorer. Shadow is more government agent, loner, or Team Dark associate. They just don't really come together until a crisis really calls for it, or something Shadow is doing somehow is connected to Sonic.

[Your Vest Friend]

Sonic and Shadow really should get a story where they work together, considering that's one of the most favoured dynamics in the franchise. When was the last time Archie touched it in any way (outside of Worlds Unite)? SU#2?

[DabigRG]

23 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

And he's so popular that after decades of not seeing other characters playable , he's the first one playable in years. Its because a lot of people love this character, over "core" members of the cast. They could have just made playable. No he is that, he's been that.

 

That could also be because he's essentially a Sonic-clone--Dark Sonic.

[MetalSkulkBane]

10 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I disagree. 

So put it simply, shadow is weird. 

When the advanced series was happening, when sonic X was happening, he had just debuted. He wasn't around enough to be core cast, they had a bunch of other characters and ideas and also used them. And When Lost world an chronicles were happening they were using the cast less, this includes amy and kncukles. Rush isnbout him, its about another character. Pinball party might have been experience they just didn't feel like he fit. You know why? Because he's in both sonic and sega allstars racing games in terms of being in spin offs. 

I don't think anything you said doesn't mean he's not core. I think it means, he's literally the most popular character in the franchise, and maybe just MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYBE sega has said the thiing that I am going to say , " Maybe they just don't want to over extend his character by putting him in everything " . He isn't like the rest of the cast, he's weird he has a weird level of seriousness about him. and debuted at a weird time, but he's popular. And he's so popular that after decades of not seeing other characters playable , he's the first one playable in years. Its because a lot of people love this character, over "core" members of the cast. They could have just made playable. No he is that, he's been that. He's on their damn banner on the top of their forums, he's the first question that gets asked about when new games come out. He despite not being in games for a hot ass minute continued to get merch along with the other " core  " members of the cast

He is core, he's just not around all the time. Because they aren't doing shit that fits him all the time, but if they are doing something that does fit him, they will bring him around. This isn't unique to sonic either, mario even has this.

Those are some pretty good arguments. But I have to ask: what do you understand as "Core Cast"?

To me, Core Cast are the ones with who must appear in almost every incarnation of the franchise, the ones with much higher number of appearances than the rest. So with this definition, yeah Shadow is not exactly core. Granted, part of the core group (Sonic, Tails, Eggman) are 'core-ier" than other (Amy, Knuckles). So line I'm drawing here are subjective. If I stretched a little further Shadow would count. And if further, so would Silver. And Metal Sonic.

Still, there are tittles that are obviously more important than the others. The fact that Sonic Boom didn't picked Shadow as 5th member is prove enough to me that Sega doesn't see him as equally important as they are.

But Boom proves that you have a point as well: he's not "Core" (by my definition anyway), but he's right after them. And Sonic Forces proves that there are times he'll get even better position than they did. Even if last time he had it was Sonic 06, good 12 years ago (...almost forgot: assist trophy in Smash). He's sorta wild card,

Soooo, what were we arguing here again? I kinda lost track. Your first post in this page suggest you think Shadow wasn't getting enough screen time in comics (even if he had more than Silver, Rouge or Chaotix, that can be proven with hard numbers). But your last post is explanation why he's not and should not be appearing all the time. I'm a bit confused.

[Shadowlax]

17 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

That could also be because he's essentially a Sonic-clone--Dark Sonic.

If that's the only reason, why not make amy playable

Why not make tails playable. You could just give him large sections to fly over, it wasn't level design in those levels were super intracate. Why not make espio playable, why not blaze playable? Why specifically shadow? Oh, its almost as if people like him and he's become important because that to the degree in which they insert him into plots as they see fit and him being playable after years of not being playabe would be a draw for a lot of people. Also I don't think the Clone doesn't work for a few reasons, one in terms of character he isn't. But two, in terms of mechanics.... apparently he was supposed to have some form of chaos control that didn't make it in the game. So not only were they going to include him. They were going to give him unique mechanics sonic did not have. 

 

[RedFox99]

@Shadowlax You do have a good point there. I guess it's just that Shadow has had an extensive character arc and detailed backstory, and since none of of the other characters really have that it made me salty to consistently see Shadow when the others are being constantly sidelined.

[BlueSky]

Well, one thing I've learned from this topic is people aren't too keen about searching for information about the stuff they find interesting.

Like, that's something I do for fun; that's actually something I've done with Sonic a lot, and pretty much with other stuff I read/watch/whatever (One Piece is even BIGGER of an example). And dvelving into the universe like that actually makes me even more interested, I dunno why but Wikis are something I keep going back for finding funny tidbits and other things like that.

Heck, I once used a full day for searching out stuff from old console games in Wikipedia and found out all the crazy stuff about Nintendo, I'll never see that company like before that adventure ever again... Gee the Earthbound stuff was something else...

Again, it seems like I'm minority. Funny how I keep getting amusement for something others seemingly hate doing...

[NikoS]

Oh, one thing i'm sure is that i've spent some (read: a lot) days reading the Mobius Encyclopaedia and the Sonic wiki, i love reading these things, and i'm glad that the IDW Sonic HUB is already a thing.

[Sonictrainer]

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadow presence in stories is more serious and deeply explored.

His journey of forgetting his purpose twice and then deciding to leave the past behind him is was only serious in SA2.

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

He is one of the few characters that actually bring pure evil villains that (even Eggman has to help defeat are invented) for Shadow to handle due to being created and indluenced from Shadow, plus two which actually defeated Sonic and one of them killing him.

The idea of Sonic and his friends teaming up with Eggman to defeat the robot or monster Eggman tried to control is nothing new here.

It's not like Shadow was there to help with Dark Gaia, the Deadly Six, or even the Time Eater.

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadows character skips out on humoristic tone with pure dramatic tension for a sonic title

"This will be a date to DIE for."

"Where's that DAMN 4th Chaos Emerald?"

"You got THISSSS, Sonic."

"Hey, you just tripped me!"

"I'm the coolest."

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

more characters on shadows side like the gun commander, rouge and omega get more than their fair share of multi layered focus on establishing themselves out side of being quirky.

The GUN commander only appeared once throughout the games.

Omega is lucky to make an appearance outside of the Handheld and Mobile Games.

Rouge appears more often than the other two and even manages to be in the story without having to team up with Shadow.

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

That's more than I can say of Knuckles, Silver, and Blaze. Who' personal stories and villains get defeated by Sonic quite easily at the first try.

Death Egg Robot (S3 & K), Titan Metal Sonic, Chaos, the Phi Series, Gemerl, Eggman Nega, Captain Whisker, Iblis/Solaris, the Nocturne, the Ifrit, the HBH, and Infinite were not easy opponents to defeat.

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Except Sonic and Tails who are indominately good guys and never get painted wrong in their actions or choices.

 I guess we're just going to ignore the ongoing debate about how Tails' behavior has changed since Colors and why people don't like how he was portrayed in Lost World and Forces.

4 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Maybe that' why Sonic isn't hot with the Japanese, no one can branch from the title character as being a major thematic equal. Shadow would be a great main lead in his own corner of the sonic cannon if he was written by Japanese people instead of Americans who just rip off Vegeta and mewtwo elements for him.

Takashi Iizuka, who is the current head of Sonic Team is the one who come up with the idea while Yuji Uekawa created his final design. Both are Japanese.

If Japanese writers came in for the comic, it would interesting to see where they take the character. However, I doubt race is a contributing factor to how a Sonic game character gets written in a comic book story.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

If that's the only reason, why not make amy playable

Why not make tails playable.

Why not make espio playable, why not blaze playable?

Because while Amy is indeed a hedgehog and graduated into being an official Speed-Type, she can't boost.

And while Tails is Sonic's Sidekick, he has also never explicitly shown the ability to outright boost.

Meanwhile, Espio is probably only fast because of his ninja training.

Blaze, despite fitting the criteria far better than the others and being a literally hop away from getting the role logically, isn't even a blip on Forces' radar. Especially given she lives in a completely different dimension. 

Thus, Shadow, who is a fake hedgehog explicitly designed for the purpose of matching Sonic, was the easiest choice.

[DabigRG]

34 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

"This will be a date to DIE for."

"Where's that DAMN 4th Chaos Emerald?"

"You got THISSSS, Sonic."

"Hey, you just tripped me!"

"I'm the coolest."

 Don't forget:

"There's no time to play games. You won't even get the chance!"

"Ow. That hurt."

"Hm, this is like taking candy from a baby--which is fine by me!"

"...now, I am the most powerful hedgehog in the world! The power of these Emeralds makes me invincible! I am the ultimate hedgehog! This is WHO I AM. *maniacal laugh*

"NoOOOAUGH!"

"When the mouth is open, that's when I'll attack."

"Let's! Get! MOVING!"

"Perhaps you should've hired a Defense Force for the Defense Force."

Also where is the fourth one from?

[PublicEnemy1]

12 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

 Don't forget:

"There's no time to play games. You won't even get the chance!"

"Ow. That hurt."

"Hm, this is like taking candy from a baby--which is fine by me!"

"...now, I am the most powerful hedgehog in the world! The power of these Emeralds makes me invincible! I am the ultimate hedgehog! This is WHO I AM. *maniacal laugh*

"NoOOOAUGH!"

"When the mouth is open, that's when I'll attack."

"Let's! Get! MOVING!"

"Perhaps you should've hired a Defense Force for the Defense Force."

Also where is the fourth one from?

You also forgot "You're going straight to hell!"

[Kuzu]

You think they'd capitalize on Sonic and Shadow teaming up more. Having two rivals team up is one of the easiest ways of garnering reader interest.

[The Tenth Doctor]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

Also where is the fourth one from?

That would be Sonic Rivals 2. Rouge is being questioned by Shadow and she 'plays' with him, leading to said tripping.

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

You also forgot "You're going straight to hell!"

You know what, I did briefly consider including it, though the list ended up being longer than I intended. 

6 minutes ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

That would be Sonic Rivals 2. Rouge is being questioned by Shadow and she 'plays' with him, leading to said tripping.

Sounds about right, I suppose.  

Sonic was on too positive a degree of terms to do that, after all.

[Your Vest Friend]

48 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

You think they'd capitalize on Sonic and Shadow teaming up more. Having two rivals team up is one of the easiest ways of garnering reader interest.

I get them not wanting to do it so often that it'd wear the appeal out, but I swear Flynn just never did it in his era beyond...what, Enerjak's Return? Hedgehog Havoc at a push? which is a shame because that was never really a focus in those arcs. 

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Because while Amy is indeed a hedgehog and graduated into being an official Speed-Type, she can't boost.

And while Tails is Sonic's Sidekick, he has also never explicitly shown the ability to outright boost.

Meanwhile, Espio is probably only fast because of his ninja training.

Blaze, despite fitting the criteria far better than the others and being a literally hop away from getting the role logically, isn't even a blip on Forces' radar. Especially given she lives in a completely different dimension. 

Thus, Shadow, who is a fake hedgehog explicitly designed for the purpose of matching Sonic, was the easiest choice.

Classic sonic and the avatar character.

Oh hey, tails has a bunch of wisp based gagets and can fly

Amy has 2d levels

As far as epsio goes you are pulling that out of your rear end and for all we know he could boost. He is a speed type character

Thus you haven't proven anything. 

They could have chosen other people

They chose shadow, because people like him. And people liking him has given him importance in the franchise and solidified his place in it. And I don't even know why the hell you are even trying to argue that when sega will tell that themselves

2 hours ago, Sonictrainer said:

 

"This will be a date to DIE for."

"Where's that DAMN 4th Chaos Emerald?"

"You got THISSSS, Sonic."

"Hey, you just tripped me!"

"I'm the coolest."

 

As much as I like sonic I don't think those were trying to be funny on purpose. Sonic series frequently suffers for bad writing.

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

 Don't forget:

"There's no time to play games. You won't even get the chance!"

"Ow. That hurt."

"Hm, this is like taking candy from a baby--which is fine by me!"

"...now, I am the most powerful hedgehog in the world! The power of these Emeralds makes me invincible! I am the ultimate hedgehog! This is WHO I AM. *maniacal laugh*

"NoOOOAUGH!"

"When the mouth is open, that's when I'll attack."

"Let's! Get! MOVING!"

"Perhaps you should've hired a Defense Force for the Defense Force."

Also where is the fourth one from?

Bad writing that doesn't really disprove the point. 

Its your interpretation of the events, you finding it funny. But that's all it is, you finding it funny

[DabigRG]

25 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Classic sonic and the avatar character.

 

You know that they were already in the existing game with their own gameplay styles and SEGA wanted to use the Modern Sonic gameplay for the DLC.

27 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

Oh hey, tails has a bunch of wisp based gagets and can fly

Amy has 2d levels

As far as epsio goes you are pulling that out of your rear end and for all we know he could boost. He is a speed type character

Thus you haven't proven anything. 

They could have chosen other people

They chose shadow, because people like him. And people liking him has given him importance in the franchise and solidified his place in it. And I don't even know why the hell you are even trying to argue that when sega will tell that themselves

 

You brought up how SEGA picked Shadow for the DLC over any other character and I pointed out another base benefit/incentive to doing so. Simple as that.

 

25 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

Bad writing that doesn't really disprove the point. 

Its your interpretation of the events, you finding it funny. But that's all it is, you finding it funny

Two of those were from Adventure 2, you know. And I'm pretty sure two others were intentionally humorous.

 

Any reason you singled my post out when it was simply adding on to what @Sonictrainer said?

[A person, that exists]

7 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadow doesn' need gun to be in a sonic plot. 

Despite the fact that Shadow and the rest of team Dark were GUN agents since Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic Next Gen. That's like saying that Knuckles doesn't need the Master Emerald, or Amy doesn't need her Sonic obsession. 

7 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

He' sonics rival who like as he was in shth and sonic side titles clashes with sonics viewpoints and ways of dealing justice. 

That's a good description for SA2 Shadow. The later Shadow actually seems to share a lot of Sonic's viewpoints, like, say, the power of teamwork (Notice how he usually cares for his friends at Team Dark, heck, in Chronicles he wanted to break into an unknown enemy's base just to save Omega), something that Sonic never utilized in post-Chronicles games.

To me, Metal Sonic would fit this role well enough, since he WAS created and programmed as Sonic's rival by a man, who clearly has the opposite viewpoints.

7 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

He should be like in x or boom, hes a threat to the heroes as much as the villains due to having self motivated to achieve personal goals no matter how good or bad it ends up for Sonic or his villians

X was a retelling of the Adventure games for the first two seasons, and in my opinion the "X Shadow" you're talking about is just the arrogant and confused Adventure 2 Shadow, who wouldn't work in the post-Adventure stuff, 'cause that would completely obliterate his character and make 17 years worth of character development completely pointless. Not to mention, heck, in season 3 he actually HELPED the main cast for the most part. 

As for Boom Shadow: first, Boom isn't canon. Second, the Boom Shadow is meant to be an overblown parody, the "Meme Shadow", if you will. Using HIM in a Sonic story that isn't a comedy's just... Unintentionally funny to me.

7 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Ian made Knuckles and Amy bigger players than Shadow. He doesn't really care for the character alot unless he writes him being with others.

 Knuckles is the guardian of the most powerful artifact in the Sonic universe with a lot of mystery around him and his people. Not to mention that he's Sonic's best friend.

Amy's an incredibly social fangirl of sorts, who follows Sonic around and gets into trouble on the way.

With THEM you actually can write pretty okay stories, and make them play bigger roles. They're the big parts of the supporting cast, they're classic characters, they're Sonic's friends for god's sake! 

Not to mention, Shadow DOES play a large enough role in the comics. If Ian will make him EVEN MORE important than he already is, then we'll get a perfect comic adaptation of Nazo Unleashed: Two hedgehogs fighting for emeralds, while the crowd cheers them on. 

[Sonictrainer]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

As much as I like sonic I don't think those were trying to be funny on purpose.

What's better is that he says this while smiling for the first time in the game.

Quote

Amy doesn't need her Sonic obsession. 

Let's call it admiration.

It should never cross that point like it did in Sonic Battle.

[The Tenth Doctor]

3 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

I get them not wanting to do it so often that it'd wear the appeal out, but I swear Flynn just never did it in his era beyond...what, Enerjak's Return? Hedgehog Havoc at a push? which is a shame because that was never really a focus in those arcs. 

There was also Sonic Universe 2 where they team up to take a laser cannon out, that counts too (though most people read that one cause they were touting it as the Adventure 2 tie in after all these years).

[Shadowlax]

5 hours ago, A person, that exists said:

Despite the fact that Shadow and the rest of team Dark were GUN agents since Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic Next Gen. That's like saying that Knuckles doesn't need the Master Emerald, or Amy doesn't need her Sonic obsession. 

 

No its not. 

They kind of did it in the last comic, they did it in sonic forces. Gun isn't mentioned Shadow could just be operating on his own, and team dark. Along with that, they legit brought out more black arms and shadow doesn't need gun to do that. 

Gun is litterally nothing and isn't comparable to those things. The ME has been a central plot point multiple time and in way makes knuckles relevant in terms of importantance

The only reason GUN exists is because SHADOW is important. Its opposite. You can remove gun and team dark from shadow, and he functions fine and people still ike him

So no , that's not an apt comparison.

Edit: :Like if the master emerald got destroyed for ever it was a big event, knuckles was the main character for a bit, there would be this emotional weight , knuckles wondering what he was doing from his life. If GUN, shut down or like was destroyed. Yeah shadow might be like RIP, but the only two dudes he cares about are omega and rouge who's allegiance  and employment to gun is questionable at best. So if rouge and omega survived, I dunno, they would still be them. Things you are making comparisons too are things that make characters who they are now. Removing gun from shadow now wouldn't change anything. Like he said " he will fight like he always has " . Heck if you wanna make a thematic argument shadow is the way he is, because something was removed from his life already.

[Razule]

6 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Gun isn't mentioned Shadow could just be operating on his own, and team dark. 

Well.. unless Shadow's got his own secret agent business, who's thr Intelligence Division?

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Razule said:

Well.. unless Shadow's got his own secret agent business, who's thr Intelligence Division?

The could be working for someone else

shrugs

They don't need gun, they could work for anyone. They are basically mercs who , well shadow at least, align with the side of good