Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Rowl]

I hope not. We really do not need a bunch of brand new characters just for the sake of having them. The Sonic universe is overfilled with characters that they haven't used yet probably. Blaze ist, for example, one that can use some more screentime interactions. Same with the Chaotix.  

[Marco9966]

We should have stories about Chaotix, and Team Dark, and Team Rose. Sonic should be a secondary character in these stories.

[Red]

I'm loving this comic so far. There was a lot of foreshadowing in #14 so I can't wait for #15. Starline seems interesting so far.

I'm curious when we'll see Super Sonic's first appearance. It would have to be for a situation even more dire than Super Neo.

[Red Hot Jack]

I also hope this plot becomes more of a threat than season 1, Eggman is a great antagonist, It's a lot of fun honestly.

And I don't get why the book needs more characters, Archie reboot was overcrowded, every issue was filled with newly introduced characters, and new places for world building, it was more like an encyclopedia than a fun comic, it was a boring formula because we just had a lot of scrapped characters because of the lawsuit and Ian felt the need to desperately  repopulate the world.

What this comics needs is certainly not more characters in each issue, this is fine, may I remind you that issue 14 had 8 characters, it's very much fine, what it needs is more interesting plots, personal stories, bigger threats, brand new situations and mysteries to be engaging. And it needs to touch some deep themes, like issue 6 did and it's the reason it is my favorite issue so far, it reminds me of the deep Mega Man comic book.

[Adamis]

2 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

We should have stories about Chaotix, and Team Dark, and Team Rose. Sonic should be a secondary character in these stories.

That's why Sonic Universe existed. You won't have that in the current Sonic the Hedgehog.

Also, you seem to forget we'll get a mini-series soon.

[Marco9966]

1 minute ago, Adamis said:

That's why Sonic Universe existed. You won't have that in the current Sonic the Hedgehog.

Also, you seem to forget we'll get a mini-series soon.

Hopefully the miniseries's success will lead to more miniseries.

[Red Hot Jack]

A review for the latest issue: https://comicsverse.com/sonic-vs-dr-starline-sonic-the-hedgehog-14/

It got a score of 92/100. Reddit is also positive about it. Well, I found it kind of boring and predictable and it didn't really add much, but Starline is interesting and a competent villain. Even though Eggman obviously is top.

[Meta77]

More characters does not make a story a series better. They could have 20 and without a story backing it means noting. Its unneeded clutter.  as for mini series there will be more but knowing idw dont expect a sonic universe format

[DabigRG]

On 2/28/2019 at 12:37 PM, Jack the Shadow said:

Honestly, while the new book doesn't wow me at all. Would you say that Archie reboot was better? Because the FFs appeared alongside Sonic? Here we have old and new characters who accompany Sonic, it's the same. Even Archie had them split into short groups for missions. The difference is that the reboot spent 3 full years constructing the world... and when Ian fleshed it out and was ready to play with it finally... the book got cancelled. Meh. This is why I was mad at the time. So now I'd rather have it focused on the story, but it needs to be more interesting than this.

Yeah, sorta.

Admittedly, I think one of the main reasons why is because Archie had a lot more variety and appreciation for the entire franchise going on. Even ignoring the Freedom Fighters being major characters, you had stuff drawn from or referencing other subseries of the franchise plus what the comic itself came up with. And as far as the games go, there was a concise effort once Karl Bollers and especially Mr. Flynn joined the books to shape the world in a way that acknowledges and runs with various disparate aspects of it. Need I also cite the huge cast it had to play with--from recurring Modern cast, to Classic darkhorses, to the lesser appreciated, to reworked faces from Satam & Adventures, to the original world defining sideliners. Overall, it kept a lot of things that existed within the greater franchise alive and kickin in some form. I guess the primary downsides to it was the fact that there was so much of it that could easily overwhelm some and as noted, the Unleashed adaptation ended up going on longer than anticipated.

So with Archie sadly cut short after a nearly [second] record breaking tenure, we got IDW filling the slot of an Sonic comic. The biggest appeal that I've seen to it is that it's all [Dreamcast to Modern] game characters almost all the time, which I guess is a draw for the more casual and/or source material faring crowd. Of course, isolating IDW on it's own merits, there is a catch to it that's purveyed for most of it's run thus far: it might feature game characters above all else, but it's mainly the "safer" band of thirteen and even then, mostly just Sonic, sometimes Eggman, and the sidekick of the issue. Which keeps things simple and varied, but it's still fairly limited. Moving away into the stories themselves, they have most of those three things, with arguably more of a noticeable hangup to them. The most recent issue seems to be showing this clearly: on paper its Sonic & the investigating Silver encountering the still somewhat mysterious Dr. Starline for the first time, but in practice it's another Sonic & friend fight Eggman Forces plot. Oh and setting-wise, it's primarily been random nameless villages in a prairie/forest, an Eggman base, and Angel Island.

To sum it up, IDW is certainly fine and easy to pick up for the general public, but Archie had so much more going on.

[Kellodrawsalot]

10 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Yeah, sorta.

Admittedly, I think one of the main reasons why is because Archie had a lot more variety and appreciation for the entire franchise going on. Even ignoring the Freedom Fighters being major characters, you had stuff drawn from or referencing other subseries of the franchise plus what the comic itself came up with. And as far as the games go, there was a concise effort once Karl Bollers and especially Mr. Flynn joined the books to shape the world in a way that acknowledges and runs with various disparate aspects of it. Need I also cite the huge cast it had to play with--from recurring Modern cast, to Classic darkhorses, to the lesser appreciated, to reworked faces from Satam & Adventures, to the original world defining sideliners. Overall, it kept a lot of things that existed within the greater franchise alive and kickin in some form. I guess the primary downsides to it was the fact that there was so much of it that could easily overwhelm some and as noted, the Unleashed adaptation ended up going on longer than anticipated.

So with Archie sadly cut short after a nearly [second] record breaking tenure, we got IDW filling the slot of an Sonic comic. The biggest appeal that I've seen to it is that it's all [Dreamcast to Modern] game characters almost all the time, which I guess is a draw for the more casual and/or source material faring crowd. Of course, isolating IDW on it's own merits, there is a catch to it that's purveyed for most of it's run thus far: it might feature game characters above all else, but it's mainly the "safer" band of thirteen and even then, mostly just Sonic, sometimes Eggman, and the sidekick of the issue. Which keeps things simple and varied, but it's still fairly limited. Moving away into the stories themselves, they have most of those three things, with arguably more of a noticeable hangup to them. The most recent issue seems to be showing this clearly: on paper its Sonic & the investigating Silver encountering the still somewhat mysterious Dr. Starline for the first time, but in practice it's another Sonic & friend fight Eggman Forces plot. Oh and setting-wise, it's primarily been random nameless villages in a prairie/forest, an Eggman base, and Angel Island.

To sum it up, IDW is certainly fine and easy to pick up for the general public, but Archie had so much more going on.

But the problem is ARCHIE had too much characters and stuff going on and a lot of those things simply...werent good. Let alone side the fact that the standards for the art quality was pretty poor, we also had older writers who made..rather quistional choices, we had Karl Bollers who wrote Sally in such a bad manner because he planned for Sonamy to be a thing in the book while at the same time making Amy mentally 10 years old, No one cared about Tommy Turtle and we had to many` ''gender-swaped' characters, that were added for very bad drama and felt forced,

Fiona was just a female Tails, Elias was a male Sally, Lien-Da was an evil female Knuckles, Nicole was just a female Nack, there was just wasnt much creativity in the creation of these characters both in design and personalities.  

The whole Titan Tails became a big joke, the slap issue is still regarded as one of Sonic's lowest moments in comics. The whole Penders echidna lore just felt tiring, sure Ian fixed a few of those things but the comic book still felt so cluttered and inconsistent. (furry characters with Barbie anatomy next to Sega Sonic characters just look weird) these things really isolated the comic from a large part of the Sonic fanbase and newcomers. 

[Red Hot Jack]

To sum it up: Archie reboot was trying to please the old comic fans who wanted a big expanded universe. This is a casual approach for those who just play Sonic. They are so different.

[Marco9966]

Post-reboot is still the best and IDW has a lot of work to do to be half this good.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

But the problem is ARCHIE had too much characters and stuff going on

I said that.

My point was just that IDW is still very young and bare with it's old minor hangups to overcome.

2 minutes ago, Jack the Shadow said:

To sum it up: Archie reboot was trying to please the old comic fans who wanted a big expanded universe. This is a casual approach for those who just play Sonic. They are so different.

Pretty much.

9 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

 

Fiona was just a female Tails, Elias was a male Sally, Lien-Da was an evil female Knuckles,  there was just wasnt much creativity in the creation of these characters both in design and personalities.  

 

Not...really?

Okay, Fiona was initially "introduced" as a honey trap robot and Elias was apparently created by Mr. Penders so Mr. Bollers would have something else to play with, but they all spun into being their own things. Fiona in particular is such a different beast next to Tails.

[Red Hot Jack]

Although I'd have to note that they may have gone with this direction because people, mostly game fans and the larger portion of the fandom were also thrown off by the fact that the comics were so different than the games and that Sonic was part of the Freedom Fighters. I didn't mind it because they were split into different groups. But it's not so different from now. Again, last issue had 8 characters which is plenty. The problems it had were not about the cast or writing.

[SBR2]

6 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Hopefully the miniseries's success will lead to more miniseries.

Well considering that starting with the Annual there hasn't been a set of solicits without a second book of some kind I think it's a safe bet.

[Pengi]

10 hours ago, Rowl said:

I hope not. We really do not need a bunch of brand new characters just for the sake of having them. The Sonic universe is overfilled with characters that they haven't used yet probably. Blaze ist, for example, one that can use some more screentime interactions. Same with the Chaotix.  

I think it was very important for them to introduce Tangle and Whisper, since the Sonic series is lacking in "cool" female heroes. Amy, Marine and especially Cream were created to be cutesy first and foremost. Rouge is a femme fatale. Blaze has cool appeal, but keeping her in Sonic's universe too long instead of her own would undermine her narrative. So both Tangle and Whisper fill a niche, whilst also having unique fighting gimmicks and personality types within the cast.

With the two of them established, I don't think we need to see any new heroes anytime soon. But the series could do with more villains and civilians in its world.

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Pengi
typo

[Dash Speed]

Blaze belongs with the cutesy crowd Amy is in. Rouge fits the cool theme because she's sexual and female empowering. Shadow should be on par with Sonic but distinct in being cool appeal character.

[Multikaris]

Hey, at least they’re more interesting than DoDonpa... 

 

Yeah, I think this only looks good next to stuff like TSR (which is out-Kishimoto-img Morio Kishimoto with its lack of production values) and the movie (which will still be more original, but originality doesn’t equal goodness), rather than on its own merits.

[DabigRG]

21 minutes ago, Pengi said:

I think it was very important for them to introduce Tangle and Whisper, since the Sonic series is lacking in "cool" female heroes. Amy, Marine and especially Cream were created to be cutesy first and foremost. Rouge is a femme fatale. Blaze has cool appeal, but keeping her in Sonic's universe too long instead of her own would undermine her narrative. So both Tangle and Marine fill a niche, whilst also having unique fighting gimmicks and personality types within the cast.

With the two of them established, I don't think we need to see any new heroes anytime soon. But the series could do with more villains and civilians in its world.

 

 

 You said Marine twice.

15 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Hey, at least they’re more interesting than DoDonpa... 

 

Uh, relevance?

[Kazhnuz]

Personally, I really liked this issue. It was kinda "slow" but the set-up was fun and how they are working on Eggman and Starline, especially how they are showing the first hints of possible future friction (as Eggman doesn't care that much about Starline, and that Starline is way more pragmatic and methodic than Eggman). Also, I liked how we get to see the preparation of the plan, and I really feel that here, the pace will help the climax. I also liked the "joker" bit about Eggman, about how just carpet bombing Sonic wouldn't be interesting for him.

And honestly, even if I'm a big fan of post-reboot Archie, I'm not really negative in the comparison between the two, because the real moment when Archie outshined was in some specific arcs and in the Universe... In other moment, it was kinda meh, especially during the Gaia Key Search (it had some good issues, though).

Most of my issues I think will be solved by the possible future arrival of more secondary-character driven side-issues, so I'm not really bothered by them.

[Kellodrawsalot]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

I said that.

My point was just that IDW is still very young and bare with it's old minor hangups to overcome.

Pretty much.

Not...really?

Okay, Fiona was initially "introduced" as a honey trap robot and Elias was apparently created by Mr. Penders so Mr. Bollers would have something else to play with, but they all spun into being their own things. Fiona in particular is such a different beast next to Tails.

I was talking about their designs, Fiona was just created as a female-Tails-For-Tails,  She looks like a red Tails with a bow and a weird bodysuit.

Fiona hardly had any personality for the longest time other then being angry at Sonic in two pages or showing a liking to guns.  She was paired up with Sonic for no reasons (with zero build up of said characters even liking one another) and developed a character because of Flyn who just needed to look for an excuse to make her interesting and have Fiona and Sonic break up. Elias again doesn't really have much of a personality or anything that makes him stand out , other then being known as Sally's brother. Nicole was just Nack..only a girl. Big difference is that she showed to be a bit more kinder and sympathetic then her brother but thats it.

[DabigRG]

29 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

And honestly, even if I'm a big fan of post-reboot Archie, I'm not really negative in the comparison between the two, because the real moment when Archie outshined was in some specific arcs and in the Universe... In other moment, it was kinda meh, especially during the Gaia Key Search (it had some good issues, though).

Most of my issues I think will be solved by the possible future arrival of more secondary-character driven side-issues, so I'm not really bothered by them.

That's definitely fair in accuracy.

[StaticMania]

11 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I can't wait for the comic to be like this: more comic characters than game characters.

Hopefully they look more appealing than those dudes.

[SBR2]

2 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Blaze belongs with the cutesy crowd Amy is in. 

I fail to see how either of them are "Cutesy". Blaze is a fire princess from another dimension who has trouble connecting with other people and Amy is a fairly short fused girl who can smash bots as well as anyone else. 

[StaticMania]

Amy's overall personality is meant to be cutesy...

That short fuse was a Sonic X thing that leaked into the games, she's meant to be bratty not whatever that was.

Also this:

Is this not the cutest thing?