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IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread


Dejimon11

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The problem with the game cast is one major thing: they're too restrictive. Ian can only do so much with the game cast before SEGA rags on them about mandates. That's why I embrace every new/non-game character they have, because Ian could do more with things that aren't the creations of SEGA of Japan. 

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5 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

The problem with the game cast is one major thing: they're too restrictive. Ian can only do so much with the game cast before SEGA rags on them about mandates. That's why I embrace every new/non-game character they have, because Ian could do more with things that aren't the creations of SEGA of Japan. 

And/or, depending on the character, he can IMPLY/ASSOCIATE development through the game cast's interactions with the other characters.(Ex. Sally, Scourge, Thrash, Eclipse, Relic)

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22 minutes ago, JosepHenry said:

... Ian worked a long time with these character and he made them the best as he could. Saying that he "hated" the characters is just absurd when he did a better job with them than any person before. You didn't have to add "intensified".

You misunderstood. By "hatred" I meant the general audience, not his. The quantity of people demanding these characters to stop existing wasn't this big in 2010~2011.

33 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Still speakin in slanted absolutes, I see. 

If you don't really believe in your own argument, who else will?

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1 minute ago, Korke said:

You misunderstood. By "hatred" I meant the general audience, not his. The quantity of people demanding these characters to stop existing wasn't this big in 2011~2012.

We don't need these characters anymore. We already have a big enough cast and new characters with new stories.

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5 hours ago, I Love Sticks said:

Are people allowed to dislike them? I just don't want to see them on screen. Personal opinions, I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about Sticks anyway.  So yes, I mention them being protagonists as a reason to dislike the book.

Did I say that?

I just asked what the crux of it was because I was curious. Most of the time I get “because they’re not from the games” as the reason like everything else such as characterization doesn’t matter unless its about the game cast, and I’d like to think people aren’t that shallow to scapegoat characters like that.

For instance, people don’t dislike Sticks just because she’s from Boom and not the main series, they dislike her for her characterization.

7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

No its that.

They wanted video game characters more frequently scene in the main comics with sonic. Instead they got ... well characters from an old cartoon who a lot of the audience, even someone who is like me now an adult was too young to watch the cartoon they were from and had no context or connection to the characters

You think this new comic being formatted as " character hangs out with sonic" is a coincidence?

No, it’s not. What they actually got was the game cast, the Freedom Fighters, and a whole bunch more original characters that outnumbered both of them combined.

This new comic being “Sonic hangs out with character” isn’t a coincidence than it is a shift of direction, and the age of whomever seen the cartoon they were in is irrelevant given the difference in context they were in by comparison. 

But the people who wanted to the game cast...still got the game cast. They just got more along with it that other long time fans appreciated.

1 hour ago, Wraith said:


They weren't seeing them enough. This is a well documented complaint with the old series that they even tried to adjust to fix.

And I can say for certain that complaint is not really true even during Penders run of Archie. Granted there were loads of characters during that period, but it’s not like they weren’t seeing characters like Tails, Amy, or Knuckles enough just because Say was around.

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2 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

And I can say for certain that complaint is not really true even during Penders run of Archie. Granted there were loads of characters during that period, but it’s not like they weren’t seeing characters like Tails, Amy, or Knuckles enough just because Say was around.

This isn't something that's objective. People wanted more focus on game characters even with the focus they were already getting. 

This is coming from someone who didn't actually mind them all that much from 200-onwards or so.

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40 minutes ago, Wraith said:

This isn't something that's objective. People wanted more focus on game characters even with the focus they were already getting. 

This is coming from someone who didn't actually mind them all that much from 200-onwards or so.

But the game cast still had plenty of focus with what they had, even with the other characters, and that is saying a lot on its own. They’ve even had whole arcs where they took center stage, such as Battle for Angel Island, Champions, Endangered Species. And more to it, they even got a rotating sub-series to help flesh out other characters even more. 

So the case you’re stating makes people come off as being greedy about the spotlight regarding other characters, which isn’t a new phenomenon even in the games.

But even still, the game characters always played heavy roles even with the Freedom Fighters around, and they specialized enough to make them notable as individual characters—far more than what anyone can say about them in the games lacking the FF. You frequently see Sonic and Tails paling around as it did Sonic and Sally being a thing, you frequently see Amy being lovestruck with Sonic (but in a more tasteful and healthy manner), Sonic and Knuckles would jab at each other, and you even see things that pre-date the games attempts, such as Tails and Sonic arguing and distrusting each other before culminating into a full blown fist fight, or Knuckles duking it out with Shadow, among plenty other cases. So if it’s about them not monopolizing the focus in the previous comic, it comes off more that people care less about the focus on the characters and more about their tastes dominating that of others.

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1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

We don't need these characters anymore. We already have a big enough cast and new characters with new stories.

We don't need Cream, Gemerl and Omega either. We didn't even need most of the character used in this arc. We basically don't really need "any" character, and thinking in term of "big enough cast" is basically nonsensical. It's not a question of size of the cast (except in some extreme measure, like having 10 main character like in Post-SGW, which was its biggest mistakes and why I was more for making the FF a secondary characters group instead of a main one).

It's mostly a question of use, and how different characters are used. Different characters fill different niche and different use, and tbh there are many niches that aren't really used, especially in characters that would be supporting characters for specifics roles.

It's also a question of which story is written. I could say a lot of story that would be interesting, and where you would need more than your "big enough cast". Many stories of Post-SGW used and needed those "non-canon" characters to advance the story of the main character. For instance the Tails and Bunnie flashback was basically one of the best characterization of the smoll fox, as they were able to use how Sonic inspired Tails as a basis, while showing something that was more than just yet again an interaction between Sonic and Tails (something they did too). To take one example of story that would be useful for IDWSonic, if they wanted to show a story that really showed some of the organization (or the re-organisation) of the Animal World, character that are kinda like the FF and the other groups created by Flynn post-SGW would be useful, as they could serve a Militia of Some Town™ that have to be rebuilt, so would be a basis to make the world evolve. Likewise, if you want to show more stuff about the Human World, having some new characters could be useful.

I'm not saying that we need the FF in particular for any that, but that's better if it's not yet again with a character of the main cast, for me, and the niche they could fill is kinda usefull (character that would be more tied to some particular place, and could be used to show some more formal groups, that could work pretty differently than the resistance, that is basically a bunch of more-or-less friends that save the world). And that I prefer when a creator reuse characters instead of creating expy, when they can. And that's the same for many other characters. Many character from different canon could be retooled to be useful.

For me it's not really a question just about the FF, but about the legacy of Sonic, and of everything made around, things that often got a lot of passion, even if they weren't always like the games. ( That's basically why I loved Post-SGW Sonic. That was the last attempt of creating a "unified canon" for Sonic, as much as it was possible. Something that used the base of the games to create the world, but that was a big love letter to everything that Sonic was. Sometimes by directly retooling the characters, sometimes by creating expies. It was a "Sonic World", most that everything else we got. There was so much passion about the franchise that I really loved it, even if the use of the Unleashed story wasn't perfect at all. )

.

And I will add that many people were happy that Dr. Starline (I'm really afraid to make a typo with his name xD) was that he reminded people of Finitevus. I've seen people talking about it here, on planete-sonic's Discord, on reddit, on TVTropes… So I think that legacy characters have still a place in the heart of many people. It's exactly like the Classic-only character, or when people where happy that Madonna Garnet reminded them of Topaz. They are a part of the culture of the fandom (and of fond memories), so many people would like them to be reused (especially when they could fill some useful niche)

 

So that's why it's not for me a question of "big enough cast".

Or if we need any characters.

Just a question of stories, and how stuff are used.

 

( maybe my writing is a bit too dramatic for just a comic about a dumb blue mammal )

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1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

But the game cast still had plenty of focus with what they had, even with the other characters, and that is saying a lot on its own. They’ve even had whole arcs where they took center stage, such as Battle for Angel Island, Champions, Endangered Species. And more to it, they even got a rotating sub-series to help flesh out other characters even more. 

So the case you’re stating makes people come off as being greedy about the spotlight regarding other characters, which isn’t a new phenomenon even in the games.

But even still, the game characters always played heavy roles even with the Freedom Fighters around, and they specialized enough to make them notable as individual characters—far more than what anyone can say about them in the games lacking the FF. You frequently see Sonic and Tails paling around as it did Sonic and Sally being a thing, you frequently see Amy being lovestruck with Sonic (but in a more tasteful and healthy manner), Sonic and Knuckles would jab at each other, and you even see things that pre-date the games attempts, such as Tails and Sonic arguing and distrusting each other before culminating into a full blown fist fight, or Knuckles duking it out with Shadow, among plenty other cases. So if it’s about them not monopolizing the focus in the previous comic, it comes off more that people care less about the focus on the characters and more about their tastes dominating that of others.

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying RE: how the book handled the sega characters. I was pretty satisfied with how the book handled the cast in it's last few years and I actually remember some post reboot issues where I thought it was weird for the FF to be so off to the side, like Champions.

There was definitely a demand for a slimmed down cast despite all of this, though. Mega-Drive stole people's hearts and it's all they've really wanted since. I enjoyed MD a lot so I was really eager for more stuff like that and I knew a lot of people in a similar camp. Not everything is a case of "fuck you got mine" even though people like that are fairly prevalent in this fanbase. 

Those people seem to be satisfied for now, but I'm guessing that it'll become an issue once IDW's cast inevitably balloons. I think you could easily write a Sonic story with a more focused group of characters but Ian likes working with a big world and a big cast. It's his style.

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3 hours ago, Korke said:

At this point, I don't even want the FF's back. Especially with Flynn still on control. This intensified feeling of hatred towards those characters is a byproduct of his writing on the post-reboot.

People cheered on their permanent death, but in the end it was all for nothing. This arc still had several characters that added nothing to the narrative.

Lol, no one handled them better than Ian. He made the FFs better characters during the reboot by blending them into the cast. In fact the version I can't stand the Freedom Fighters is the original one from SatAM. It's the one I hate the most, even pre-reboot though, thankfully Ian moved on from the Sonally drama.

Yeah though, we don't "need" any characters other than Sonic, actually.

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10 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

For a lot of folk, the real answer is  " I want to see the video game characters do shit, who are these people I do not care for them "

 

If people don’t like the Freedom Fighters, that fine. But the problem I have with this is that mindset has made the games so lackluster to me. It’s real easy to take that answer and turn it into:

”I want to see Sonic do shit, who are these other characters, I do not care for them”.

This has me more concerned when people say the comics should me more like the games and can’t help but think of Classic nostalgia pandering and everyone else sitting around for Sonic to save them instead of being active in the plot.

Even if I didn’t like the FF I wouldn’t demand that they go away because it makes me no better than the critics do demanded that the games should only be about Sonic and Eggman.

Also there’s only so much you can do with the game cast alone where it’s gonna come to a point where comic-original characters are going to come forth whether people like it or not.

Also I find it funny when people say fans only care about characters from the games when original creations like Tangle and Whisper got tons of love via fanart.

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1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

No, it’s not. What they actually got was the game cast, the Freedom Fighters, and a whole bunch more original characters that outnumbered both of them combined.

This new comic being “Sonic hangs out with character” isn’t a coincidence than it is a shift of direction, and the age of whomever seen the cartoon they were in is irrelevant given the difference in context they were in by comparison. 

But the people who wanted to the game cast...still got the game cast. They just got more along with it that other long time fans appreciated.

 

You were asking why people didn't like those characters

That's it

If you like it or hate that they that's why that's none of my business.

But that's literally what it is

Just now, knuckles20 said:

If people don’t like the Freedom Fighters, that fine. But the problem I have with this is that mindset has made the games so lackluster to me. It’s real easy to take that answer and turn it into:

”I want to see Sonic do shit, who are these other characters, I do not care for them”.

This has me more concerned when people say the comics should me more like the games and can’t help but think of Classic nostalgia pandering and everyone else sitting around for Sonic to save them instead of being active in the plot.

Even if I didn’t like the FF I wouldn’t demand that they go away because it makes me no better than the critics do demanded that the games should only be about Sonic and Eggman.

I would argue there's a difference between " Characters who have been in the games and the main thrust of the marketing since 1998 " and " characters who are from a cartoon I wasn't even old enough to watch , have no context for and I don't care for because most of the people reading this comic played the video games first "

They are similar complaints, but I feel one makes a lot more sense than the other. The people who want sonic only , who cares about them, The people who would like the main cast of the comic based on a video game, to be that cast from the video game, have a lot more of a reasoned argument

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4 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

You were asking why people didn't like those characters

That's it

If you like it or hate that they that's why that's none of my business.

But that's literally what it is

I would argue there's a difference between " Characters who have been in the games and the main thrust of the marketing since 1998 " and " characters who are from a cartoon I wasn't even old enough to watch , have no context for and I don't care for because most of the people reading this comic played the video games first "

They are similar complaints, but I feel one makes a lot more sense than the other. The people who want sonic only , who cares about them, The people who would like the main cast of the comic based on a video game, to be that cast from the video game, have a lot more of a reasoned argument

Then no one should care about Tangle or Whisper because they’re not from the games.

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4 hours ago, Ivo the Coldsteel said:

 

Also while typing this I just realized that I think IDW is the first time Sonic and Shadow have interacted with each other in a Sonic comic since like 2008, outside of the Mega Man crossover.

FUCKING THIS

Just now, knuckles20 said:

Then no one should care about Tangle or Whisper because they’re not from the games.

There are probably some who don't. But as of currently they aren't the focus, intrusive and were introduced in this comic so they might not be annoying people yet.

But even then, its still not the same situation because again, there was a whole section of the audience who didn't know who these "FF's" were or were from. Where are tangle and whisper from, this comic. You can read it, they are relevant to this book

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My reasons for not liking the Freedom Fighters are not because they don't originate from the games, obviously, if I acted like that I wouldn't like Sticks, which first appeared in a comic book. It's just that aside from Bunnie and Nicole, I don't find the Freedom Fighters likeable or relatable as characters, I find especially Sally, Antoine and Rotor (and the minor SatAM cast) as annoying, especially their drama and shit. I'm glad Ian moved on from that. I don't think they fit the Sonic series either, in fact they didn't blend into the cast until the reboot universe. I like Sticks because she does fit very well, she seems like a Sonic character, same for Tangle and Whisper actually, but I wouldn't want either of them to become protagonists. I also dislike the fact that they overshadow Sonic, especially Sally. Sort of the reasons why people hated Shadow during the dreamcast era. I also don't like some characters from the games, such as Cream, so it's not true that I'm only in favor of game characters, Cream for example is presented as a cute face and nothing else, that kind of bugs me. I have my favorites and disliked ones, like everyone does.

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45 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying RE: how the book handled the sega characters. I was pretty satisfied with how the book handled the cast in it's last few years and I actually remember some post reboot issues where I thought it was weird for the FF to be so off to the side, like Champions.

There was definitely a demand for a slimmed down cast despite all of this, though. Mega-Drive stole people's hearts and it's all they've really wanted since. I enjoyed MD a lot so I was really eager for more stuff like that and I knew a lot of people in a similar camp. Not everything is a case of "fuck you got mine" even though people like that are fairly prevalent in this fanbase. 

Those people seem to be satisfied for now, but I'm guessing that it'll become an issue once IDW's cast inevitably balloons. I think you could easily write a Sonic story with a more focused group of characters but Ian likes working with a big world and a big cast. It's his style.

I thought Mega-Drive had a strong start then suffered from I’d call “Slideshow Syndrome” in the second issue where everything just happens like a checklist or a scavenger hunt than a strong narrative. That showed out a lot more to me when I read it and was disappointed.

A more focused group isn’t hard to do any more than a large cast so long as one plots and narrates well, but one thing I know is that having a huge cast without enough room isn’t good if Worlds Unite is any indicator.

Regardless, I still wonder what people look at when it comes to the characters, because people phrase it as if it only a matter of whether they’re from the games or not. Or in the case of the general franchise, whether they’re from the Genesis era or post-Genesis at times. Sure, it’s really just the more vocal, but that still further begs the question of what the problem is and what is it that they elaborate on caring about. You know as much as I do that people don’t often practice what they preach when questioned, so that’s why I bring this up.

24 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

You were asking why people didn't like those characters

That's it

If you like it or hate that they that's why that's none of my business.

But that's literally what it is

No, it’s not it. They still have the game characters regardless, and simply being from the games isn’t the distinction that makes or breaks a character entirely to an audience. It’s not “they’re not from the games, so I don’t like them” with everyone, and you know it.

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The only way we get the FFs back is to have new characters but similar to them

(like Rough and Tumble instead hooligans, Dr.Starline instead of Dr. Finetevus)

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1 minute ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

No, it’s not it. They still have the game characters regardless, and simply being from the games isn’t a distinction that makes or breaks a character entirely to an audience.

Not everyone operates under your logic, they didn't feel like they still had the game characters.

That's literally what it is my dude for like most people.

5 minutes ago, I Love Sticks said:

My reasons for not liking the Freedom Fighters are not because they don't originate from the games, obviously, if I acted like that I wouldn't like Sticks, which first appeared in a comic book. It's just that aside from Bunnie and Nicole, I don't find the Freedom Fighters likeable or relatable as characters, I find especially Sally, Antoine and Rotor (and the minor SatAM cast) as annoying, especially their drama and shit. I'm glad Ian moved on from that. I don't think they fit the Sonic series either, in fact they didn't blend into the cast until the reboot universe. I like Sticks because she does fit very well, she seems like a Sonic character, same for Tangle and Whisper actually, but I wouldn't want either of them to become protagonists. I also dislike the fact that they overshadow Sonic, especially Sally. Sort of the reasons why people hated Shadow during the dreamcast era. I also don't like some characters from the games, such as Cream, so it's not true that I'm only in favor of game characters, Cream for example is presented as a cute face and nothing else, that kind of bugs me. I have my favorites and disliked ones, like everyone does.

I agree with them sort of being unrelateable. Only two I found relatable was Bunny and antione.

Sally became more useless to me over time, because when blaze got introduced I was like " ... Just use her, she's way better. Look at her, she's like way better"

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7 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Not everyone operates under your logic, they didn't feel like they still had the game characters.

That's literally what it is my dude for like most people.

And not everyone operates under your logic of “game characters only”, or resort to outright lying about not having the game characters when they full and well did have them.

I’m going through this back and forth when you know better.

 

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2 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

We don't need these characters anymore. We already have a big enough cast and new characters with new stories.

What if Team Dark became villains again? What if Silver heads back home? Who’ll fill in for them? 

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Just now, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

And not everyone operates under your logic, or resort to outright lying about not having the game characters when they full and well did have them.

I’m going through this back and forth when you know better.

 

.... I didn't lie?

What i'm saying is that other people might not have felt that what was there was enough, and wanted more game characters to be regular cast memebers in the main book

Again, someone mentioned. Sonic and Shadow hadn't seen eachother in a main sonic comic since 2008.

 

Just now, Miragnarok said:

What if Team Dark became villains again? What if Silver heads back home? Who’ll fill in for them? 

....Why would team dark becomes villians

Silver and blaze going back home still leaves a sizable amount of people

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1 minute ago, Shadowlax said:

.... I didn't lie?

What i'm saying is that other people might not have felt that what was there was enough, and wanted more game characters to be regular cast memebers in the main book

Again, someone mentioned. Sonic and Shadow hadn't seen eachother in a main sonic comic since 2008.

 

....Why would team dark becomes villians

Silver and blaze going back home still leaves a sizable amount of people

Because, well, maybe a new villain gains their allegiance? And not only Silver and Blaze going home, but also Knuckles. And what if Big’s not cut out for the job?

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Just now, Miragnarok said:

Because, well, maybe a new villain gains their allegiance? And not only Silver and Blaze going home, but also Knuckles. And what if Big’s not cut out for the job?

How would they do that?

You know damn well they don't actually care about knuckles guarding the master emerald

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Just now, Shadowlax said:

How would they do that?

You know damn well they don't actually care about knuckles guarding the master emerald

Flynn might care. Maybe. And Rouge’s jewel cravings and Omega’s bloodlust are good reasons.

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Just now, Miragnarok said:

Flynn might care. Maybe. And Rouge’s jewel cravings and Omega’s bloodlust are good reasons.

Shadow exists, so that's not gonna happen?

While yes, Rouge and Omega are a bit more morally gray than a lot of other characters. Shadow is the leader and kind of moral center of that team. That is along with, Rouge isn't going to join a bad guy team specifically for jewels even in SA2 it she was a spy on the bad guy team. And omega's lust isn't for blood its for the destruction of eggman and his robots.

So yeah.

Not only do they have a leader in place to prevent that, they just aren't those sorts of people. That is ontop of, even if shadow went evil they would chew shadow out about that. So its vice versa.

 

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