Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[MetalSkulkBane]

So, issue #10. Huge spoiler: Metal Sonic gets belly button piercing.

When talking about previous issue I said " I'm honestly concerned about next issue, because I don't think it can be as good as this one."

Long story short I was 100% right. There are at least 3 disappointments in this issue. 20 pages and plot moved forward exactly one step.

Spoiler

Art is good, dialogue too (just smaller scale than last issue) bla, bla, bla. But what actually happened?

Remember how exited we were about Burning Blaze? Well, she's gone. I was bloody wrong about Metal going after her power, which would lead to epic Super Form fight. She burned some ship. Resistance isn't doing much better, they do what FF did in "Panic in the Sky". Fill space.

Remember that Shadow left on his own, so we though he's going to do something awesome to save the day?  Well, he actually help Metal Sonic get even stronger.

Remember how shocked we were that Metal Sonic transformed at the end of last issue? Well, Flynn though it was so effective twist, doing it twice would work even better. Because we all think that giant dragon was the coolest of Metal forms. NO IT WASN'T. YOU YOURSELF MADE FUN OF IT IN WORLDS COLLIDE. I'm sorry, but Super Metal was something new and exiting. Metal Overlord 2.0. is... well, 2.0. A repeat. Been there, done that.

Also, something is happening with Mr. Tinker. "Doc", huh? I swear, those Megaman crossovers are getting persistent. Ok, more realistically I'm guessing that:

Spoiler

Nega is coming. We could assume real Eggman is kidnapping his phantom clone, but dialogue suggest otherwise.

Whoever it is, I kinda disapprove setting next story arc during the big finale like that. Loki didn't stopped in middle of invasion in Avengers 1 to have conversation with Thanos about Infinity Stones.

Again, it reminds me of "Panic in the Sky". Great first part, second issue is so much filler. Those mandatory 4-parters be damned.

[Shadowlax]

That was a good issue

That was a good shadow

[StaticMania]

As usual, Shadow's always causing problems.

[Irish David]

Can Vector and Tangle be a thing?!?! Their interactions were hilarious!!!

Spoiler

Good to see Rough and Tumble again, building to their next altercation with Sonic

Another good solid issue after the last one, looking forward to the next one to see what happens next. The artwork was great and really flowed well with Evan and Tracey working together. 

[DabigRG]

So, there's a snippet of a panel where 

Spoiler

Vanilla laying the teacher smackdown

floating somewhere.

 

Wtf?

[Red Hot Jack]

This was somehow better than 9, because that was more strategy and characters interactions oriented, this one had things happen, if you think about it:

Spoiler

- The Egg Fleet getting off the island.

- The resistance fighting

- Super Neo vs Sonic and Knuckles

- Shadow making his mistake

- Neo's transformation

- And let's not forget Mr Tinker getting kidnapped by those skunk bros.

So all of this happened, that's a lot, plus Rough and Tumble talk about the "Doc", could Eggman Nega be finally joining the comics?

Shadow was the greatest, his reaction is totally Shadow, I was expecting that and I got what I wanted. Plus... What surprised me is that Neo had a brand new form: Master Overlord.

The art was good I thought, I still prefer Stanley and her precious fangs. But Yardley also did great.

[SBR2]

11 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

I’ll never understand the argument of the Freedom Fighters stealing the spotlight from the game characters, given how the FF were in the comic from the start.

 

I don't understand it because it's not true. If anything they had equal focus to say nothing of arcs that didn't even feature them.

I'd say it's more accurate to complain about the Echidnas and the Brotherhood taking focus from Knuckles since I don't recall Knux doing like anything in his own book. 

[Shadowlax]

You all can believe that.

I"m going to sit here with this comic that exists the way it is, literally because that happened the new comic is different because that happened. Also because of lawsuits, but also because that happened. Its not like it was so bad that even during crossoevers with capcom this happened, no no no. That totally didn't happen

[Kuzu]

I'm still liking this arc, but I can't help but be a bit underwhelmed by this issue's cliffhanger.

 

 

[RedFox99]

3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

So, there's a snippet of a panel where 

  Hide contents

Vanilla laying the teacher smackdown

floating somewhere.

 

Wtf?

Uh, which panel? 

Anyways, I liked this issue and it's the first one of the IDW comics that I got a physical copy of (Cover A).

[Diogenes]

I'm really just...kinda rolling my eyes at this whole thing.

Spoiler

Like half the issue is spent on the lower tier heroes and Blaze taking out grunts and none of it feels like it matters. It never feels like the heroes are in any danger, it doesn't feel like a meaningful victory against Metal, it's just like, everyone gets an action pose or two, good job. They even blew the series' first "super" form on this.

The fight with Metal isn't really much better. Super Neo Ultra Turbo Metal Deluxe is clearly more than Sonic and Knuckles can handle but it doesn't really feel like he's decisively so. Or at least, it feels like he's hitting hard at the start of the issue, but when we cut back to this fight it all feels weak; the heroes no longer look visibly hurt or even tired, and the only clear hit we see is him backhanding Knuckles, and that doesn't feel like enough for them to be down and for Metal to start gloating.

And then Shadow deus ex machinas his way into a combo on a guy Sonic and Knuckles together couldn't even touch. I don't know if they meant for Shadow's Chaos Spear (which is now a melee weapon rather than a projectile for some reason?) to cancel Metal's super form or if Metal had a Mecha Sonic style time limit and he just happened to run out or what...it just feels kind of cheap. Small amount of credit for this ultimately making things worse rather than solving the problem, at least.

And then we've got Metal Overlord again. Or Master Overlord apparently. Whatever, it's the same thing, we've already done this before. Super Neo Metal was goofy but at least it wasn't literally just Heroes again. It's not even like this is an entirely new continuity that's just "coincidentally" doing something like Heroes, Heroes legit already happened in IDW Sonic's backstory, but I'm still supposed to care about everyone fighting Metal Overlord again. And what is with these conditions he apparently needs to transform? Not that it made a whole lot of sense in Heroes, but I at least thought the Chaos data was most responsible for the giant dragon transformation because Chaos turned into a giant dragony thing. But what part of Sonic and Shadow's data and the Master Emerald equals trash dragon? 

The scene with Eggman is fine I guess, setup for a future storyline, sure. But if this is supposed to lead into Nega then fuck that. We are already in the middle of a storyline with a "fake" Eggman. We don't need another when the real Eggman has yet to do jack shit in the comic so far.

 

[Marco9966]

9 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I'm really just...kinda rolling my eyes at this whole thing.

  Hide contents

Like half the issue is spent on the lower tier heroes and Blaze taking out grunts and none of it feels like it matters. It never feels like the heroes are in any danger, it doesn't feel like a meaningful victory against Metal, it's just like, everyone gets an action pose or two, good job. They even blew the series' first "super" form on this.

The fight with Metal isn't really much better. Super Neo Ultra Turbo Metal Deluxe is clearly more than Sonic and Knuckles can handle but it doesn't really feel like he's decisively so. Or at least, it feels like he's hitting hard at the start of the issue, but when we cut back to this fight it all feels weak; the heroes no longer look visibly hurt or even tired, and the only clear hit we see is him backhanding Knuckles, and that doesn't feel like enough for them to be down and for Metal to start gloating.

And then Shadow deus ex machinas his way into a combo on a guy Sonic and Knuckles together couldn't even touch. I don't know if they meant for Shadow's Chaos Spear (which is now a melee weapon rather than a projectile for some reason?) to cancel Metal's super form or if Metal had a Mecha Sonic style time limit and he just happened to run out or what...it just feels kind of cheap. Small amount of credit for this ultimately making things worse rather than solving the problem, at least. 

And then we've got Metal Overlord again. Or Master Overlord apparently. Whatever, it's the same thing, we've already done this before. Super Neo Metal was goofy but at least it wasn't literally just Heroes again. It's not even like this is an entirely new continuity that's just "coincidentally" doing something like Heroes, Heroes legit already happened in IDW Sonic's backstory, but I'm still supposed to care about everyone fighting Metal Overlord again. And what is with these conditions he apparently needs to transform? Not that it made a whole lot of sense in Heroes, but I at least thought the Chaos data was most responsible for the giant dragon transformation because Chaos turned into a giant dragony thing. But what part of Sonic and Shadow's data and the Master Emerald equals trash dragon? 

The scene with Eggman is fine I guess, setup for a future storyline, sure. But if this is supposed to lead into Nega then fuck that. We are already in the middle of a storyline with a "fake" Eggman. We don't need another when the real Eggman has yet to do jack shit in the comic so far.

 

 

Spoiler

But the Master Emerald contains Chaos, so that explains the dragon form.

 

[Dejimon11]

Yeah I'm pretty much echoing what @Diogenes said

Spoiler

I was expecting Sonic, Shadow and Knuckles to just take on Super Neo instead of him turning into Overlord and doing Heroes again. I was sort of expecting that the way they would defeat him was that they were going to make him use up his super form sorta like how mecha sonic did in S3&K. But oh.

 

[Big Panda]

5 hours ago, DabigRG said:

So, there's a snippet of a panel where 

  Hide contents

Vanilla laying the teacher smackdown

floating somewhere.

 

Wtf?

I...don’t recall seeing Vanilla anywhere in the issue.

 

[Diogenes]

11 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

But the Master Emerald contains Chaos, so that explains the dragon form.

In that case,

Spoiler

What is the "limitation" that Metal no longer has, that Shadow expected would have prevented him from transforming? Everyone knew he had the Master Emerald and Sonic's data, and Shadow wasn't worried about Metal getting his data. If the Master Emerald could be used as a source for Chaos' data, then what sets this apart from what happened in Heroes? Was Tails' data essential to transforming too, or what?

 

[Red Hot Jack]

Spoiler

Honestly I would have been annoyed if Metal had the old transformations again, but these are unique, they are brand new and they pay homage to Super Mecha Sonic and Metal Overlord. It's not Heroes again, I don't recall seeing Angel Island in that, and I don't recall having Super Sonic here. I would also been annoyed if Metal didn't have his final form and played his trump card so early.

 

[Marco9966]

Just now, Diogenes said:

In that case,

  Hide contents

What is the "limitation" that Metal no longer has, that Shadow expected would have prevented him from transforming? Everyone knew he had the Master Emerald and Sonic's data, and Shadow wasn't worried about Metal getting his data. If the Master Emerald could be used as a source for Chaos' data, then what sets this apart from what happened in Heroes? Was Tails' data essential to transforming too, or what?

 

 

Spoiler

Perhaps Shadow thought that only Chao can be used for Chaos data, not thinking that the Master Emeralds also has Chaos in it.

OR Metal took Biolizard or Black Arms data from Shadow to turn into a dragon form.

[Dejimon11]

@Marco9966 just use the spoiler tag already man. Some people still haven't read the issue yet. 

[Gumbit]

16 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

And piss off the fans who have been following the Freedom Fighters?

How is this any different than critics of the games campaigning everyone but Sonic should be cut out?

Why is it impossible to balance time or mix the two groups of characters together?

I think it would be better if Satam characters and archie had their own alternate universe that is separated from game characters and lore . game characters have their own comics and FF/Satam characters have archie comics .

[Sega DogTagz]

23 minutes ago, Gumbit said:

I think it would be better if Satam characters and archie had their own alternate universe that is separated from game characters and lore . game characters have their own comics and FF/Satam characters have archie comics .

But the Archie comics started out as that alternate universe. Right from the jump it was largely an alternate universe with its own characters a lure that was seperate from the games. It was clear from the start that this space was reserved for this alternate lure and was only tied to the games by the loosest of threads. It wouldn't be until years later, that the Sonic games focused on enough of a cohesive story for people to start expecting the comics to reflect the game canon to a larger extent.

 

The Archie comics were designed to be a cohesive environment with the FF from day 1. As time went on, I feel like they did an admirable job adapting to the times and bringing in more game elements/characters - but in the end that just isn't enough for some people who came over after inception and shook cages to change it to what we see today. The comics were never supposed to be very reflective of the games... until they were.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

50 minutes ago, Gumbit said:

I think it would be better if Satam characters and archie had their own alternate universe that is separated from game characters and lore . game characters have their own comics and FF/Satam characters have archie comics .

Except 1) the FF/Satam are owned by Sega, who 2) pulled the lisence from Archie meaning Archie can’t make an alternate universe for them.

And I frankly don’t see how that would be better when folks who like these characters like them with the game characters, much less the lore they built with them. Separating them isn’t going to make that better—shit’s already fucked with the games doing just that with Classic and Modern Sonic having a wall between, and one would figure to have learned from that case alone that separating things like that only makes it worse off for other fans invested in this franchise when that isn’t necessary nor is it addressing the problem (whatever that may actually be in this case—“the Freedom Fighters existing” is less a problem than it is another out of many cases of downright pettiness).

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Eerie-Ernest-Panda said:

I...don’t recall seeing Vanilla anywhere in the issue.

 

Okay, it might've been from Sonic X or some random fan commissioned issue.

[Shadowlax]

9 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I'm still liking this arc, but I can't help but be a bit underwhelmed by this issue's cliffhanger.

 

 

I agree but i kinda feel this is the nature of this kind of first year

" Here's everyone"

" Here's them fighting a bad " 

We will get cool complications later , I hope at least. And better and a bit more ddepthy characterizations 

Knuckles was amazing right before the comic the last comic ending

[DabigRG]

Now that I've actually gotten access to this issue, I can talk about it and/or reply to some of these.

Spoiler

Yeah, this did feel like somewhat poorly organized/paced filler.

Master Overlord is just...uhh.....

Also, don't like how Ms. Stanley draws Knuckles. Shadow and even Sonic looked fine, though.

And I liked that nonchalant stretch n slap.

18 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

 

  Hide contents

Also, something is happening with Mr. Tinker. "Doc", huh? I swear, those Megaman crossovers are getting persistent. Ok, more realistically I'm guessing that:

  Hide contents

Nega is coming. We could assume real Eggman is kidnapping his phantom clone, but dialogue suggest otherwise.

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, I Love Sticks said:

This was somehow better than 9, because that was more strategy and characters interactions oriented, this one had things happen, if you think about it:

  Hide contents

 

- And let's not forget Mr Tinker getting kidnapped by those skunk bros.

So all of this happened, that's a lot, plus Rough and Tumble talk about the "Doc", could Eggman Nega be finally joining the comics?

 

]

Well, that'd definitely answer my previous question about their color coordination.

10 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I'm really just...kinda rolling my eyes at this whole thing.

  Hide contents

And then Shadow deus ex machinas his way into a combo on a guy Sonic and Knuckles together couldn't even touch. I don't know if they meant for Shadow's Chaos Spear (which is now a melee weapon rather than a projectile for some reason?) to cancel Metal's super form or if Metal had a Mecha Sonic style time limit and he just happened to run out or what...it just feels kind of cheap. Small amount of credit for this ultimately making things worse rather than solving the problem, at least.

 

It was like that in Archie a number of times.

9 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

 

  Hide contents

But the Master Emerald contains Chaos, so that explains the dragon form.

 

Okay, that'd somewhat explain it.

 

9 hours ago, Diogenes said:

In that case,

  Hide contents

What is the "limitation" that Metal no longer has, that Shadow expected would have prevented him from transforming? Everyone knew he had the Master Emerald and Sonic's data, and Shadow wasn't worried about Metal getting his data. If the Master Emerald could be used as a source for Chaos' data, then what sets this apart from what happened in Heroes? Was Tails' data essential to transforming too, or what?

 

Yeah, I hope they clarify that next time.

9 hours ago, I Love Sticks said:

  Hide contents

Honestly I would have been annoyed if Metal had the old transformations again, but these are unique, they are brand new and they pay homage to Super Mecha Sonic and Metal Overlord. It's not Heroes again, I don't recall seeing Angel Island in that, and I don't recall having Super Sonic here. I would also been annoyed if Metal didn't have his final form and played his trump card so early.

 

Still could've been something less interchangeable or derpy looking.

[Dr. Detective]

Alright, after a fun Halloween I've read the issue and I do believe Issue 10 might be the first time I've left an issue feeling, on the whole, rather disappointed.

Like I've said before, Ian would be perfect for writing the games. The way he writes banter between the characters makes for some really good stuff and in a game, the parts where you fight random mooks would just act as regular gameplay. Unfortunately, this is a comic and the issue that the old Archie book used to have is rearing its head again. In the issues leading up to this one, I came out liking them a lot despite the influx of fight scenes because they clearly weren't about the fights. The majority of them were very character and dialogue focused, with the fights at the end acting as a cherry on top. Here though, we've met everyone and now they're all clustered together in this huge group where they can't efficiently share screen time. Well, they could if the arc was longer and the characters were supposed to have more focus on the individual tasks they're pulling off. It worked when they did get that focus though. The scene with Blaze was well-done and there was a cute background joke with Vector and Tangle after Tails had his hero moment. Not much else though.

The fights usually tend to work better when they're not just scattered panels of characters doing things that we know have no real consequence. My favorite issue so far, in fact, is Issue #7 which was nothing but one really awesome fight. I gushed all over that thing because the art was fantastic and the thing it was setting up was something I was fully onboard for. However, the main thing I praised it for (which is the same thing I praised the fight Sonic and Megaman had against Metal Sonic and Base) was the fact that it lasted the entire issue. Because of it, it was allowed to be the thing we were focusing on and as such it came off as a cool as fuck fight.

The fight with Super Neo began alright here... but then it cut away. It really shouldn't have cut away. This entire issue, or at least vast majority of it, really should have just been Sonic and Knuckles fighting this guy like it was back in Issue 7. If you give the fight more time to breathe, it gets more time to feel climatic and it's a lot easier to follow. Watching the build-up to a climax makes things feel more satisfying to me. I understand wanting to make it feel more like a war effort on the part of the others but perhaps that would have worked better had the others been facing a more clearly defined threat themselves. Perhaps give Metal this one specific monster ship that's made up of a bunch of other smaller ships or something and it's wrecking everyone's shit. Then you start it off with Tails getting an idea. Then you SHOW everyone helping Tails reach the control room. Show how it ended up with just him and Silver being there to hold them off. Then give them a pay off by having him do the Star Wars thing and blow up the Monster ship. Provide a personified threat that's worthy of cutting away from Super Neo, otherwise it's gonna feel like filler.

That's why so many Shonen Manga have sub-bosses for other characters to fight. That's why the CP9 wasn't just Rob Lucci. That's why the Ginyu Force wasn't just Captain Ginyu. That's why Team Togoro wasn't just Younger Togoro.

It also helps to not make the main fight not feel like it's just another thing lost in the fold. It's hard to sell me on Super Neo when even the bruises and scuffs Sonic and Knuckles had at the start of the fight just disappear when we cut back to them. Not to mention, most of what they were doing was skipped over in favor of stuff that literally didn't matter. Some of it did. Most of it didn't.

I liked the scene with Mr. Tinker. It legitimately makes me sad knowing that his ways of bringing happiness to children cannot last. I love Dr. Eggman as the mad man he is but goddammit, if only he and Mr. Tinker could exist at the same time.

As for the ending, that was probably the strangest part for me. I'm not sure why Shadow's disappearance was played up so much if he was just going to surprise attack the big bad like that. Plus, if he left before everyone else, wouldn't he have gotten there first? Unless it's revealed that he actually left to do something else first then I'm really confused as to what Shadow's deal was there. 

I'm also not sure why or how a Chaos Spear to the chest knocked him out of his Super Form. I guess Chaos energy can just do that...?

I also don't know why we're doing Master Overlord. It's Metal Overlord, except it's got Derp-legs and a name that absolutely does not roll off the tongue well. Also, Ian thinks the Metal Overlord is stupid. Why is he doing this?

Super Neo Metal Sonic was a cool idea. It was goofy but it was appropriately goofy for Sonic. Plus, the coolest fight in this series so far happened with Sonic and Neo Metal Sonic in his regular form. Unless he's got something to seriously blow me away next issue, I don't see the benefit to him making himself a bigger target. 

I'd have probably had the issue focus more on Sonic and Knuckles fighting him in his Super Form and a few scenes of everyone else taking care of the issues that necessitated more focus. Then perhaps Sonic and Knuckles could get blown back a bit and everyone hurries over to lend them aid in an "Everyone vs. Great Ape Vegeta" moment. Again, it'd probably need to be a bit longer and more fleshed out for that to feel sufficient but I suppose there's a time crunch that isn't going to allow for that. Another thing that's always plagued the comics. All the more reason to keep the focus on what's important.

Not much more to say. I've actually been enjoying pretty much everything leading up to this climax but the climax itself isn't impressing me all that much.