Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Splash the Otter]

Can I just reiterate how much this division between the Classic and Modern cast upsets me? I really wanted them to coexist, and now I'm being told that's never going to happen. It isn't fair! Fuck this, I'm done!

[Marco9966]

##### this ###!!!

Just because their only game appearances had black eyes!

Stupid decision.

[FlameStream]

This is really unfortunate news. I rather liked Mighty and Ray in the comics. Their inclusion in Mania is not all good news after all. I'm kinda hoping this doesn't extend to the other remaining characters.

[Marco9966]

It's stupid, we can only play them for 30 minutes in a 2D with no story,

Rather than have them in the comic with stories, characterizations, emotions....

Sad.

They  took the design of Ray from the modern comics to insert him on Sonic Mania.

They took the hooligan trio from the modern comics to insert them on Sonic Mania.

That's what SEGA does to us when we ask them we want to see classic characters again.

 

[QuantumEdge]

I'm honestly not going to keep my hopes up with the FFs, positive vagueness or not.  Even if they will show up, I find it a little bit hard to see them pop up as soon as next year.  Not saying they wouldn't be welcome, because they are, but I don't want to set myself up for getting burned.  My big gripe though lies with Mighty and Ray.  Possibly the Hooligans as well.  That Classic/Mania only segregation is one big pile of total bull.  There's just no need to make it this complicated.  It's not helped by the fact that the duo were pretty good as characters in the old volumes and if the Hooligans are going the same way, then IDW's just lost themselves cast members a lot would consider too good to lose.  Although if they are open, then that just makes the exclusion of M&R all the more idiotic.

[LongcrierCat]

I'm pretty disappointed about the whole situation regarding Mighty, Ray, and our Hooligans. I'm also really disappointed that they didn't just get the Freedom Fighters question out of the way months ago instead of waiting through panel over panel getting the questions about them then Ian blaming us, the fanbase, for not asking at this particular con for them so he can talk about them. I'd like to tell him that there's no reason to get so defensive but something tells me there's a ton of stress here that he doesn't want to talk about. 

Why does Ian feel like he's actually kind of sick of dealing with Sonic now? The first issue is a mess in that it doesn't even have a solid mini story that's easy for anyone to follow unless they played Sonic Forces (how well did this game do again?) and expecting people who read this to have the baggage from that in this book. This is bad for a casual reader and things just kind of happen? It puts the reader in the middle of action without a care for what matters in a comic book: the marriage of art and story. There's a recap of Sonic fighting Eggman, Eggman disappears. Then we get right back into there being a fight in a village, things happen, Sonic moves along after some baggage with Tails that doesn't make any sense unless you played Forces. In fact, this book seems to think everyone played all of the Sonic games from 1998-now even though there was the SXSW panel where a kid said they were a lifelong fan and that their first game was Sonic Colours. Why didn't you make this easier to follow and why isn't there an actual story? This feels more like a displaced scene in the middle of a bigger story and I know that comic books want to hook readers in for the long haul but you need to do that by telling us an actual story with some context. The original Sonic no 1s of Archie and Fleetway handled this better. 

It also really sucks that Sonic has no foil to bounce off of to tell him that he really isn't that cool and that he needs to cool it. Literally all of the villagers and even Tails fawned over him with Tails being the only one somewhat critical of him. I mean that's a good sibling dynamic for the younger sibling to be more discerning while also loving their older brother but wow, that moment where he got emotional over events you haven't seen in this book? That's stuff you wait to put into a more heavy hitting story point. This issue didn't have much in the way of that going for it. Man, I sure am missing Sally, you guys. She'd add a lot more to this right now. Instead it's just "oh Sonic is so cool and so infallible, yeah." Yawn. And even then, she wouldn't even fix this lack of a story problem/muddled story problem(?). It's really confusing what impression they wanted to leave here but it's sloppy in a way I didn't expect. 

Oh and on the art note? Is Tracey being rushed on the art or is someone up the chain really scrutinizing the art and demanding everyone follow a house style? It really bugs me because even the layout of the shots isn't as artistically crafted as Yardley's previous work and this is the first issue of the new Sonic book. It should be leaving the audience with a good first impression. I get that we wanted to show basic action and that's cool, but the art looks a lot less expressive than Yardley's old work and the action isn't even hitting right with the character form and action layout also being too basic in detail. 

Overall. It doesn't feel like they're having fun making this book. That's a huge problem. 

What the hell happened here and how much control is Sega holding over this comic? The comic staff feels more like they're following beats without getting to stretch out creative muscles. 

[Kazhnuz]

I don't really see how this issue would show that they are not having fun or whatever, and it bother me a bit. (I spoiler the bit that talk about what is in the issue)

Spoiler

Most of this issue wanted to reintroduce the character of Sonic and the relation between Sonic and Tails. I'm not saying that the problems you find aren't real, more that they might not be imputable of what you are imputing them to.

Treating it like a quarter of issue (because it's basically what they have done with their weekly stuff) might have been an error (or maybe they shouldn't have given the first issue if it was so important to get them one after the other), but saying that they are "Ian feel like he's actually kind of sick of dealing with Sonic" or "It doesn't feel like they're having fun making this book". Especially as Flynn is known to prefer preparing stuff with long term, and that some other people would seen him as having fun with the jokes and the flow of the story (as I've seen, personally).

 

About Mighty, Ray and the Holligan, I'm unhappy too. I would have really preferred if they had done them the "chaotix" treatment, making them simply exist in both continuity with a redesign in "Modern Sonic" continuity.

[Red Hot Jack]

I like this, I'm being very honest here, that thread I made about the "classic world" lacking characters is the reason I'm saying this, but if some characters existing only in the classic world helps it establish some lore and some exclusive characters of its own, I'm glad.

I mean, it's not like Modern dimension and Classic dimension can be basically the same with different eye colors, there are gotta be some differences. So for now we have: Mighty, Ray, the Hooligans and the Hard Boiled Heavies, this will come in handy when we have a classic comic book, it's gonna be interesting! It also opens a much bigger door for other characters and the Freedom Fighters in the modern book!

I'm also intrigued by how they don't have licensing issues with the Freedom Fighters, I thought it was SEGA not wanting them back, for now we focus on the core cast but who knows? Sounds hopeful!

Okay, I'm disappointed by the first issue, but the more I hear about this (including Ian's interview from last month) the more it seems it will get good. I'm not giving up just for 1 issue. This, like all things, has potential to deliver great stories, and I say it again, it's currently the only Modern Sonic narrative going on, so if I don't hope this gets good, what can I do? Keep complaining? No thanks, it's not my thing unlike other users.

[Marco9966]

We don't need classic Sonic lore!

We just need Sonic lore!

Why people want to separate and divise and butcher a franchise based on if characters have colored eyes or black eyes??

Sonic Adventure was a natural transition to modern era. It only added eye colors for the 3D graphics of dreamcast!

Why restrict characters to story-less, dialogue-less games, when we can have them with actual personalities in modern games or comics, just because of eye color?

(I know the classic games have stories, but it's only in the manual, I want to enjoy cutscenes, or read comic dialogues!).

I'm glad the chaotix were saved from this problem.

Aren't classic fans not fond of having too many characters as far as I know?? So why take classic characters away from modern fans?

(In my case I can't be pleased because we lose important characters from the comics. Hooligans were some of my favorites in Archie post-sgw, and they were classic caharcters with modernized design!)

Spoiler

 

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Kazhnuz said:

I would have really preferred if they had done them the "chaotix" treatment, making them simply exist in both continuity with a redesign in "Modern Sonic" continuity

The Chaotix was retooled for the modern continuity. They're current incarnations are modern characters, their classic selves aren't acknowledged. They couldn't appear in a classic comic for the same reason a Classic Shadow wouldn't. 

[Marco9966]

The newest Sonic novel had all the characters including Shadow with black eyes. Is that a reason to change Shadow to only classic world? No!

Mighty and Ray were only removed because they did not transition to a game where characters had eye colors.

 

Am I the only one who think this is ridiculous?

 

Either way, even if Mighty and Ray don't appear, I'm still very excited for this new comic and new characters.

[Splash the Otter]

Does anyone know what Ian thinks of these mandates? I can't imagine he likes them any more than we do.

[Marco9966]

Hopefully Ian can write great stories even if these mandates are here.

[RedFox99]

7 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

Does anyone know what Ian thinks of these mandates? I can't imagine he likes them any more than we do.

He's addressed them occasionally in BumbleKast and says that they aren't as bad as most of us think they are.

[MetalSkulkBane]

10 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

Does anyone know what Ian thinks of these mandates? I can't imagine he likes them any more than we do.

 

2 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

He's addressed them occasionally in BumbleKast and says that they aren't as bad as most of us think they are.

1 This is only answer he can give. Agreeing is pissing of Sega, disagreeing is pissing of fans. Only option is trying to minimalize the conflict.

2 But if I have to guess his opinion... Well, he can't like people tying his hands. But at the same time he's professional, used to it by know. He probably has much more insight than us on those things.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

On one hand, FF is possible.

On the other hand, two dimensions bullshit is being imposed and literally stopping Mighty, Ray and likely the Hooligans from appearing...which annoys me greatly because those five were probably some of the best handled in Archie. Mighty got a cool arc about controlling himself and his anger, Ray gets more confident, and the Hooligans were a cool kind of villain by bringing outlaws and bounty hunters into the mix, I can't imagine this being just an Ian thing either because IIRC - Bean is one of his favourite characters to write.

This honestly killed my hype a bit. The idea of limiting off potential story and characters that people really liked in Archie - classic characters that SEGA can obviously use given Mania, and the reason why it's limited is still the same baffling bullshit that Classic and Modern are two different worlds, universes, dimensions, whatever. It was idiotic in Forces and now it's imposing an artificial limit on the comic? Seriously?

[Kazhnuz]

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

The newest Sonic novel had all the characters including Shadow with black eyes. Is that a reason to change Shadow to only classic world? No!

Mighty and Ray were only removed because they did not transition to a game where characters had eye colors.

 

Am I the only one who think this is ridiculous?

 

Either way, even if Mighty and Ray don't appear, I'm still very excited for this new comic and new characters.

There are more difference between the two settings than just "black eyes". Sonic classic universe is more surrealist, use more retro-styled narrative, etc. I'm all for having these characters in the new universe, but just saying it's ridiculous after having made more caricature what want the classic fans doesn't seems that convincing to me tbh. They seems to want to make again another franchise, a bit like Sonic Boom is to Sonic, but this time using already-existing content (and maybe more chance for this canon to survive ?).

I'm not happy about this decision either, but saying it's just a matter of "black eyes" is wrong.

1 hour ago, Razule said:

The Chaotix was retooled for the modern continuity. They're current incarnations are modern characters, their classic selves aren't acknowledged. They couldn't appear in a classic comic for the same reason a Classic Shadow wouldn't. 

True. I thought about their appearence in the classic games and not as the "neo-classic" stuff (where they never appears). So my bad.

[Marco9966]

This time we really need SEGA to know we want Mighty and Ray and the others in the comic.

SEGA listens to fans.

That's why they made Eggman playable in SA2, that's why they included the Chaotix and Cream in Sonic Heroes.

THAT'S WHY THEY INCLUDED CLASSIC SONIC IN SONIC FORCES.

 

So if we can make our voice heard, perhaps they'll accept Mighty and Ray in the comics.

[Razule]

12 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

That's why they made Eggman playable in SA2, that's why they included the Chaotix and Cream in Sonic Heroes.

Cream was created for Heroes first but Advance 2 featured her to promote her to fans. 

[Tyranno]

I've seen other accounts of the panel, and they've framed it as them "focusing on Modern Sonic". I don't know how accurate that is, but that's a very different context from "we can't use them".

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

They  took the design of Ray from the modern comics to insert him on Sonic Mania.

They took the hooligan trio from the modern comics to insert them on Sonic Mania.

That's what SEGA does to us when we ask them we want to see classic characters again.

 

Did they?

[Marco9966]

Yes, same Blue Archie comics shoes

10 minutes ago, Tyranno said:

I've seen other accounts of the panel, and they've framed it as them "focusing on Modern Sonic". I don't know how accurate that is, but that's a very different context from "we can't use them".

Is there any proper transcript of the panel so we can see what they said exactly?

[Big Panda]

Hmm...I understand them not going with the scarf and goggles (probably too modern, or even Boom-looking for classic standards) but I don't see why the blue glove cuffs couldn't he carried over.

I mean I'm not hung up on it or anything, just a random observation.

[Marcello]

So, what I'm getting from glancing over the conversation of the last few days, Classic only characters like Nack, Mighty, and co. can't be used in the Modern era? That's dumb. SEGA's obsession with keeping Classic and Modern so split is just annoying.

Also, I enjoyed the first issue.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

Yes, same Blue Archie comics shoes

 

Yeah, I scrolled back after posting to look at that.

1 hour ago, Ernest-Panda said:

Hmm...I understand them not going with the scarf and goggles (probably too modern, or even Boom-looking for classic standards) but I don't see why the blue glove cuffs couldn't he carried over.

I mean I'm not hung up on it or anything, just a random observation.

Yeah, it does look kinda weird. Especially since it covered helped further distance him from Tails.

I also wish they would've tweaked Mighty's design, or more specifically, his color scheme.

 

Edit: Just doublechecking: The Fallout Volume is the first four/five issues?

 

Also, does Tales of Deception have anything to do with IDW?