Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[NikoS]

8 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, it's only 8 issues,

I know it's just 8 issues, but just to compare, on the 8th issue of the reboot, we were already being introduced to Meropis, and before that we went through: Mobotropolis, Mystic Ruins, Wood Zone/Knothole, Metropolis, Avalon, Efrika, Artika, Station Square, Soleanna Forest and Bullet Station. That sans mentions to other places that i won't remember ATM, and all these new and returning characters. In this new beggining, standing here at issue 8, what do we have? Angel Island, The Egg Fleet, The Resistance Base (which we don't even know where it is located), and unnamed cities and bases. The world don't feel alive, but a theater play, a theater play which, right now, didn't even bothered to give it's side characters names, and the two new characters appeared for 1 scene each and after that went to the backstage, leaving us wanting more of them, and their stories.

In sum: I miss worldbuilding too.

[Marco9966]

I hope Flynn reads this forum. We need WORLDBUILDING

[RedFox99]

3 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

I hope Flynn reads this forum. We need WORLDBUILDING

Didn't people complain before that the reboot comics focused too much on worldbuilding?

[StaticMania]

2 hours ago, Ivo the Coldsteel said:

...but setup doesn't have to be this formulaic and uncreative. 

If only there was a way that it wasn't...that thing you said.

It's probsly not possible.

[Celestia]

I'm pretty sure he straight up said in an interview early on (I THINK just before the first issue came out?) that he wasn't going to focus on worldbuilding at first.

I'm not really that bothered about locations being unnamed honestly. On the other hand minor characters not being named, at least on panel, is kind of annoying. Maybe we just won't see the mayor or w/e of the town Eggman's staying at again but...it would still be nice?

[Meta77]

45 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Didn't people complain before that the reboot comics focused too much on worldbuilding?

This is the sonic fandom. Worldbuilding is needed or else we get things like the Ben 10 reboot

[MetalSkulkBane]

33 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Didn't people complain before that the reboot comics focused too much on worldbuilding?

Hmm, now that's strange sounding complain. I don't remember anyone complaining about Meropis, Breezie's casino or Egg Bosses structures. Maaaybe some people (including me) weren't to thrilled about new FF teams.

More likely we were complaining about the slower pace. That Unleashed adaptation took forever because instead of focusing on a plot we went on sight-seeing tour with flimsy excuse of Emerald hunt. In that case fair enough.
No more wasting time with unnecessary world-building. Jump straight into the action, into Sonic & Tails beating badniks, Sonic & Amy beating Badniks, Sonic & Blaze beat...Flyyyyyyn. Pacing broke again.
I mean, 12 issues is still better that around 40 (plus SU) and it's important to remember that all stories so far are 1 partners when "Waves of Change" had 4 issues to flesh out the location and it's people. Some locations work on a cheat-cheat, like Acorn Kingdom which we sorta take for granted. So point for Flynn

But why Flynn isn't even trying? Where are things like billboards with Honey's logo? Why all villages look same-ish?

Here's idea for free: let Tangle live in a Mystic Jungle from Forces. Maybe her village could build house on trees something that would work with tail-climbing.

[Dr. Detective]

Oh yeah, the Unleashed Adaptation was incredibly slowly paced. I know that people seem to be praising how it began but that fast pace definitely didn't last. Things slowed to a huge crawl and a lot of the issues we got were things that felt like they were there for the sake of introducing us to a bunch of people we were expected to eventually care about later or to reinacte something from Sonic Unleashed. I remember that being the case when it came to Chun-nan specifically. There was so much time focused on weird looking Dulcy and her group of also-rans that led to a very anti-climactic fight against the Dark Gaia Phoenix.

Another thing about the reboot is that the reason it got into the action so quickly is because it started in the middle of the action anyway. From the get-go they were starting off from where the situation pre-reboot had left off but with a bunch of things switched around. That's part of the reason why I thought Countdown to Chaos was such a huge mess. It was just go, go, go from the beginning and I was having trouble keeping up with what was happening and discerning what was new, what was old, and what was important. That memory recollection thing certainly wasn't important.

This comic is different in that it's starting directly after a conflict instead of beginning in the middle of one. Unlike the other reboot, nothing about the comic was established beforehand for it to work off of either. It's purely starting from scratch and building up to a rising action in order to reach its first climax. Yeah, it's working off of Forces but, again, Forces ended with nothing but the clean-up being the thing that the characters needed to resolve.

Well, and Eggman's whereabouts but you know Sonic Team doesn't give a shit.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

Read issue #8. I just love dorky Silver. Whisper seems to be a really shy person.

[SBR2]

1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

Didn't people complain before that the reboot comics focused too much on worldbuilding?

Yup. But now the problem is too little world building. Don't worry once he starts world building again it'll be a problem again. /salty sarcasm. 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I hope that Flynn is starting to flesh out the IDW Sonic world in the near future (and I think he is going to do that).

[GentlemanX]

10 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Yup. But now the problem is too little world building. Don't worry once he starts world building again it'll be a problem again. /salty sarcasm. 

I think it's a fair criticism to say there's a middle ground to be found between 3-4 years of introducing new characters and locations in one long story arc and spending your first eight purposefully avoiding settings and situations that stand out or intend to lend themselves to future stories.

I like the one character per issue approach this early on, but it's being done in such a boring and repetitive way that without much else to latch onto it feels wasteful. Just having named locales that show the world has differences and characters having a quirk for a gag would be enough to differentiate one story from another. But the fact the towns from issue 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-6 have little to no distinguishing characteristics or people show how on autopilot the comic is right now.

[DabigRG]

13 hours ago, StaticMania said:

So much comparing of Whisper and Tangle...they're not even similar words.

Well, think about it

• Both are IDW original heroes
• Both are showcased through covers and concept art before they actually debuted
• Both are introduced alongside a pre-Modern era hero
• Both have been perceived as loose embodiments of the Avatar concept

There's just enough correlation there for people to compare and contrast them if they really want/need to.

12 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

You know what I miss from Archie? Places.

Even after Reboot, Flynn was speeding up to show us that the world is alive. So far this world consists of
- generic Forces towns
- Eggman bases
- Resistance base (you would think after beating Eggman they would have something better then that smelly magazine)
- Angel Island

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, it's only 8 issues, But it just feels like Flynn is actively avoiding World-building, something he usually relished in. Even "Mr Tinker" lives in unnamed generic village with nameless mayor. Is Flynn trying to invoke spirit of games or something?

It's not helped by the fact that Flynn is seriously limited by games locations. Remove human cities, assume that LittlePlanet/LostHex/WispsPlanets/Ark/SpaceIsSureBusyInThisWorld are a bit far and won't appear for one-issue small story, let's not even talk different dimension and you're left with... Islands from early games? Assuming that Classic Mandates won't make it touchy subject? Maybe it's time to look at Riders series, we're running dry here.

Yeah, that was a serious problem I had with this comic since around Issue 4.

 

12 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

I think it's more Flynn wanting to avoid to have the same criticism than he got with the worldbuilding of Post-SGW, and wanting to concentrate on the present story. IIRC he said somewhere that he would get wilder in the future, or something like that ?

That sounds mighty excessive if that's the case.

3 hours ago, NikoS said:

 The world don't feel alive, but a theater play, a theater play which, right now, didn't even bothered to give it's side characters names, and the two new characters appeared for 1 scene each and after that went to the backstage, leaving us wanting more of them, and their stories.

Four.

3 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

Didn't people complain before that the reboot comics focused too much on worldbuilding?

Honestly, I think that was more fatigue for the Unleashed adaptation itself moreso then the worldbuilding, both of which were notably rushed near the end thanks to World's Unite and possibly people complaining.

It then sounds like a case of people associating worldbuilding in general with that fatigue, thus declaring it a problem.

[StaticMania]

56 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Well, think about it

• Both are IDW original heroes
• Both are showcased through covers and concept art before they actually debuted
• Both are introduced alongside a pre-Modern era hero
• Both have been perceived as loose embodiments of the Avatar concept

 

But they're not gonna replace each other...also...concept art? Why even with that?

Maybe if they had attributes to compare...other than the Avatar concept which seems to only apply to one of them.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

But they're not gonna replace each other

Well, obviously not. I didn't say that.

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

...also...concept art? Why even with that?

 

Because that's how the releases happened? Even if Whisper is more of a Rough n' Tumble than a Tangle.

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Maybe if they had attributes to compare...other than the Avatar concept which seems to only apply to one of them.

Tangle was once described as essentially being a Sonic fan living in Sonic's World. Ironically, that's the closest to what character she had in the actual issue than all the other fluff.

It's loose, I know, but I'm not the one who decided these things.

[Multikaris]

16 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

You know what I miss from Archie? Places.

Even after Reboot, Flynn was speeding up to show us that the world is alive. So far this world consists of
- generic Forces towns
- Eggman bases
- Resistance base (you would think after beating Eggman they would have something better then that smelly magazine)
- Angel Island

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, it's only 8 issues, But it just feels like Flynn is actively avoiding World-building, something he usually relished in. Even "Mr Tinker" lives in unnamed generic village with nameless mayor. Is Flynn trying to invoke spirit of games or something?

It's not helped by the fact that Flynn is seriously limited by games locations. Remove human cities, assume that LittlePlanet/LostHex/WispsPlanets/Ark/SpaceIsSureBusyInThisWorld are a bit far and won't appear for one-issue small story, let's not even talk different dimension and you're left with... Islands from early games? Assuming that Classic Mandates won't make it touchy subject? Maybe it's time to look at Riders series, we're running dry here.

Maybe he could ask to lift locations from the post-reboot or make up some new ones? Even then, we also have stuff like Advance and Heroes.

[DabigRG]

Finally decided to got back and reread Issue 4 on whatever impulse. Here's some things I thought while reading:

• Sonic says the Resistance didn't make it there yet, even though there are two people with Wispons shooting at the Egg Pawns while others watch from the balcony. He then reacts to Tangle's presence with "Somebody's here?"...What?
  • Okay, he mentions it's the Town Militia.
• The Village is indeed Tangle's Hometown. Which is why it's unnamed.
• "You're sweet not to notice."
• I meant to question this before, but why is the dropship a giant Buzzer?
• Blaze and I guess by default Tangle look fine throughout most of this, but Sonic almost always looks weird.

[Flame Lance]

I really enjoyed issue #8. My favorite issues are the ones with plentiful dialogue and character interactions, and this one didn't let me down. Silver and Whisper were both adorable. Whisper says so little but still leaves a big impact and Silver proves what a likable character he can be. The action was great, the art was on-point, and I'm hyped to see what's next. Only thing I disliked was Silver's mild bad word. I'm just not a fan of that kind of language in anything Sonic related, so I hope it's not going to become the norm at any point. 

 

[Red]

Has this been posted yet? Tangle is getting her second piece of merchandise

[Meta77]

16 hours ago, Flame Lance said:

I really enjoyed issue #8. My favorite issues are the ones with plentiful dialogue and character interactions, and this one didn't let me down. Silver and Whisper were both adorable. Whisper says so little but still leaves a big impact and Silver proves what a likable character he can be. The action was great, the art was on-point, and I'm hyped to see what's next. Only thing I disliked was Silver's mild bad word. I'm just not a fan of that kind of language in anything Sonic related, so I hope it's not going to become the norm at any point. 

 

Bad word? What

[Marco9966]

14 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Bad word? What

He said crap

[StaticMania]

Apparently crap is now a bad word...of the mild variety no doubt. 

 

Hopefully this reaction doesn't become the norm.

[Meta77]

I really hope your joking about that being a bad word. I cant even....

[Razule]

When people say it's a bad word they just mean it's not something commonly heard in kid's stuff. Maybe these low-level slightly inappropriate words are something Sonic has been missing.  They add an extra flavor to the dialogue. Here's hoping they bring back Shadow's "damn" at some point

[Big Panda]

It’s still seen as a taboo word to use in kids media. And, like all taboos, it’s slowly being challenged. Because let’s face it, crap is nothing.

Even if I did laugh my ass off when I saw it.