Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Zavok the SpinningSilver]

Just now, VEDJ-F said:

I thought he was currently in the animation industry instead. 

Wait, really? That's awesome! He'd probably be too busy then, but still.

Wonder where he's working now then...

[Ryusuke]

I doubt this'll happen, but it'd be kind of interesting if IDW started where Sonic Mega Drive left off.

[SBR2]

21 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

I just didn't give a toss about Archie Mega Man. Not because I thought it was bad, I just have no interest in the Blue Bomber. 

Yeah, it was more original stuff than actual direct adaptation (I thought it deviated too much at certain points in fact, but that's a whole topic in of itself that I don't want to flare up here), but it was the comic's official Unleashed adaptation all the same. 

Neither do I but I managed to follow the comic just fine. Honestly the Comic made me a little more interested in Mega Man.

I didn't say it wasn't but it also needs to be looked at as more than just "The Unleashed Adaptation".  

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Which IDW series' art style would you prefer for the new comics?

Kind of a misnomer since IDW doesn't really have any one house style. That said I'd love Sophie Campbell to try her hand at Sonic. I'm in the minority that actually loved Dan Schoening's work on Worlds Unite so I'd like to see him come back especially if he drew a script by Erik Burnham.

I'm actually super excited about Variant covers for this very reason. Even if certain artists don't do interiors there's every possibility they could do a variant. Especially for issue one since it's sure to get the industry standard of a Shittillion Variants. 

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I doubt this'll happen, but it'd be kind of interesting if IDW started where Sonic Mega Drive left off.

Yeah unfortunately I don't think the main book is Classic focused. However I wouldn't put it past IDW to Release Mega Drive Overdrive. They release Specials all the time and there's nothing inherently Archie about Mega Drive.

[KoDaiko]

23 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

I just didn't give a toss about Archie Mega Man. Not because I thought it was bad, I just have no interest in the Blue Bomber. 

Yeah, it was more original stuff than actual direct adaptation (I thought it deviated too much at certain points in fact, but that's a whole topic in of itself that I don't want to flare up here), but it was the comic's official Unleashed adaptation all the same. 

 

2 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Neither do I but I managed to follow the comic just fine. Honestly the Comic made me a little more interested in Mega Man.

I didn't say it wasn't but it also needs to be looked at as more than just "The Unleashed Adaptation".  

It was a good opportunity for newcomers to be introduced to Megaman. The problem I mentioned (weak story, repetition, bad pacing) was about the game adaptions itself, though the heavy reference/fanservice/jokes and difference in interpretation made me lose interest too. Just didn't match my taste.

20 hours ago, Ryusuke said:

I doubt this'll happen, but it'd be kind of interesting if IDW started where Sonic Mega Drive left off.

Sadly it is unlikely. But I won't be surprised if IDW did the same thing as Archie, minus all the Archie-created stuff like characters and world. 

[Agie]

At any rate, I would expect IDW to start their own Sonic comic continuity before reviving the Archie Sonic continuity would be so much as in the planning stages.

 

And given that IDW still has to answer to Sega at the end of the day? Even if reviving the continuity isn't impossible, it's safe to assume it improbable at best.

 

 

 

 

[Flyinpenguin117]

I'm still hoping for my dream arc- a Team Dark-centered story styled after Burn Notice. Basically Chaotix shenanigans but with Shadow, Rouge, and Omega.

[Red Hot Jack]

Wouldn't my ideas be better than predictable adaptations?

[BlueSky]

4 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

Wouldn't my ideas be better than predictable adaptations?

Prolly depends a lot of from you're asking about it. Some around here are interested in them, others aren't.

I just hope the stuff is good, even if I won't pick it up because of the reasons I've already stated.

[Red Hot Jack]

I just think they are boring.

[BlueSky]

2 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

I just think they are boring.

Well, that's your stand towards the comics and I'll appreciate it for that, what I've seen, some think otherwise.  That's the finesse of being an individual while letting others be like that too.

If writer has a solid idea of what they're doing, adaptations can work if there's some space for them to explore.

But if it's too strict it feels unwelcoming.

[Polkadi~☆]

I think a Forces adaptation could prove to be super interesting from what we've seen of the game.

[Salamander]

I think the issue with starting from the very beginning with an adaptation-based Sonic series is that there's such a tremendous weight of history there.  When the Archie and Fleetway comics began, there were barely any Sonic games and it was easier to slot adaptations into a wider ongoing story, but now there's a pretty enormous number of games and getting through them all would be a long and laborious process; I fear it would get wearing.  I'm aware the same could be said for Mega Man, but I think that series had more obvious opportunities for developing the context outside of the games, as well as having perhaps a less long-winded structure and a not-unreachable point at which a paradigm shift to the next Mega Man series would be necessary.  In other words, I kind of think there might have been more ways to keep Mega Man fresh as an adaptation-based comic than there would be for Sonic...  I think the better approach would be one similar to post-reboot Archie, where the premise was essentially "all the games have already happened," with the odd flashback to those where relevant and where something new could be done, and then if new ones come out you can adapt them as they come.

[Celestia]

Starting with a Forces adaptation would be an interesting opportunity, in that you could (in theory) easily recap events from throughout the series with a premise like it. There's Death Egg Robots, returning villains, apparently a few returning locations as well which will probably be from throughout the series' history...

Hell, you could even take advantage of the Avatar's role to create a character to act as an audience surrogate for newcomers to the series.

[RedFox99]

13 minutes ago, Celestia said:

Hell, you could even take advantage of the Avatar's role to create a character to act as an audience surrogate for newcomers to the series.

Hopefully a better one than pre-season 3 Chris.

[Celestia]

1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

Hopefully a better one than pre-season 3 Chris.

A fair concern. Personally the main thing that bothered me with Chris was how weakly the whole loneliness plot was handled. Something people say a lot is that his parents seem perfectly nice whenever they're around and I can't disagree, but I don't think that undermines what they were trying to do with Chris in itself. The issue was that Chris felt neglected, not abused. Instead, what stood out to me was that you saw his parents pretty regularly, so it never really felt like they were actually consistently absent...of course, it's been years since I watched the show and I don't have any interest in refreshing myself on it, so eh.

This got me thinking about a way they could handle a character based on the Avatar though. You could do something where they feel kind of overwhelmed by the whole situation, despite genuinely wanting to help. I mean, if you were to run around doing your best to help out with just a weapon and a grappling hook and if your name isn't Batman you'd probably feel a little weird running around with people who can break the sound barrier and fly and so on.

I'm a sucker for "relatively normal person trying to make a difference even in a conflict involving tons of superpowered idiots" so I'd be down for something that explored that sort of thing in the Sonic universe. The game most likely won't get into this since 1) the Avatar's confirmed to not have any dialogue beyond grunts* and 2) they're an avatar, obviously, meaning there probably won't be much in terms of character development. But if IDW decides to include something like this I doubt they'd have to deal with those limitations.

*Not that I think you'd absolutely need a character to speak out loud to get development, but I doubt the Avatar'll get inner monologues either let alone any sort of complex interactions...unless we're talking like, text-only stuff in hubs or something? idk

[Korke]

I was thinking that the new IDW canon would begin with Forces for marketing reasons from SEGA... But by the looks of it, Forces will be considered a flop even before the start of 2018, so that idea may get cancelled.

Any bets on how's it going to start?

[SBR2]

43 minutes ago, Korke said:

I was thinking that the new IDW canon would begin with Forces for marketing reasons from SEGA... But by the looks of it, Forces will be considered a flop even before the start of 2018, so that idea may get cancelled.

Any bets on how's it going to start?

Why will Forces be considered a flop? Because a few salty fans aren't happy? For all we know people will end up loving Forces like they did Colors and Generations.

[Diogenes]

On 8/23/2017 at 4:24 AM, FFWF said:

I think the issue with starting from the very beginning with an adaptation-based Sonic series is that there's such a tremendous weight of history there.  When the Archie and Fleetway comics began, there were barely any Sonic games and it was easier to slot adaptations into a wider ongoing story, but now there's a pretty enormous number of games and getting through them all would be a long and laborious process; I fear it would get wearing.

How many games would they actually have to go through, though? You say there's a "tremendous weight of history" in the series, but I'd say the series has hardly ever remembered itself more than a game or two back and you could probably set up a roughly-equivalent-to-modern continuity with a fairly small number of adaptations. Like, just as a rough list...

Sonic 1...maybe. The game doesn't do anything special to establish Sonic and Eggman so I don't think it'd be hard to just skip it and assume the audience is familiar enough with the two most important characters in the series.
Sonic 2, for Tails (and the Chaos Emeralds if they skip 1, I guess).
Sonic CD, for Amy and Metal Sonic.
3&K for Knuckles/Angel Island/Master Emerald.
SA2 for Shadow and Rouge.
Maybe Heroes and/or ShtH in some form for Shadow's revival.
...Sonic Rush, for Blaze?

And that's kind of it? Sure, this doesn't account for every character introduction in the series, but they're mostly severely tertiary characters that may never appear in the series again anyway (RIP Big, also hardly anyone cares about the Rogues) or characters that just sort of...showed up with little explanation in the first place (Heroes didn't do anything to explain the Chaotix, and Silver still doesn't have a real backstory since '06 erased itself). If they're given enough leeway this could be compressed even further; a Death Egg arc (2, 3, &K), a short Little Planet arc (CD), a Shadow arc (SA2 and whatever they do to bring him back), and then maybe Rush if Blaze even matters anymore.

Not to say this is the only or the ideal way to handle it, but if they did decide to start over and adapt games there's a lot of stuff that could safely be cut.

[SBR2]

Ok admittedly This could be anything but he just out of the blue posted this. I don't know you guys!

[Badnik Mechanic]

Not sure if been said but... .... ....

Official Movie Adaptation?

[NikoS]

NYCC is 1 month 4 days away, we shall get some official news there, hopefully

[Tracker_TD]

4 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Why will Forces be considered a flop? Because a few salty fans aren't happy?

This is still the dumbest take. Stop making dumbest takes. This kinda metacommentary's probably bad for you or something.

35 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Ok admittedly This could be anything but he just out of the blue posted this. I don't know you guys!

I swear Flynn's posted this like, a million times by now. Be nice if it's Sonic related, but hell knows at this point.

[Natie]

On 8/25/2017 at 3:31 PM, SBR2 said:

Ok admittedly This could be anything but he just out of the blue posted this. I don't know you guys!

Please let it be so. Ian Flynn's stellar writing (and Yardley's art) were the only reason I even batted an eye at the comics.

[RedFox99]

Has he ever done the KnowingSmile but not as a reply to comment before.

[NikoS]

i think all the other times were replies to questions