Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Big Panda]

48 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Wait, issue 8?

Probably just a placeholder.

[Shadowlax]

On the bumblekast I learned that Ian Flynn feels similarly to myself in regards to humans. That they work better when they are complimenting the characters rather than trying to be the forefront. And that the adventure era humans feel kinda stilted, even maria and gerald. But the humans are so out of focus no ( outside of the film ) that its not anything to really worry about anymore...hopefully.

 

I also learned a bunch of people thought Silver was shadow and amy's baby

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I also learned a bunch of people thought Silver was shadow and amy's baby

Where the heck have you been?

[Shadowlax]

Just now, DabigRG said:

Where the heck have you been?

the bumblekast

Ian flynn explains due to a question asked that a bunch of people thought that they got together and had a kid

He surmises the reason for this thinking comes from two places, one the trunks comparison silver on his character design sheet. And while shadow isn't vegeta, he's simular and the closest thing to a bulma in their mind was amy  ( even though she's a lot like chichi tbh ). Then in sonic and the black knight apperently silver's repisentation is shadow's son in the original story. And while Ian didn't mention this part, in the original story lancelot gets with the king's wife while they are married. So I guess they assumed since amy ( even though she isn't that character in the game ) is the sonic " girlfriend " character, that was somehow communicating that's what the characters will do.

Its silly , the other guy in the podcast mentions that you shouldn't be taken sonic and the black knight as canon or having meaning to anything. Its essentially sonic having a fever dream and the characters are famous knights because selling toys.  And Ian mentions that iizuka shot down the " silver is shadow's son " theory a while a go, I remember him doing that but yeah.

Its very silly and this is how they got there.

The only thing I could believe is

Spoiler

silver and the guy who made him ( who also iirc wanted a silver stand alone game or something ) wanted him to be that, but since iizuka made shadow but is in more of a director for a while and may not have been hip to any hints thrown in the games and found out when people asked, gave a definitive no( Because he's studio head and part shadow's creator )  and proceeded to basically separate those characters

and i barely believe that

[Elseb]

Hello everyone, hope you're well. I stopped reading at issue 5 as I was a bit underwhelmed. How has the series been since then? 

[Big Panda]

@Shadowlax

He meant how the hell are you only just learning of this now when it’s been a widely spread theory since Silver was introduced.

[DabigRG]

10 minutes ago, Elseb said:

Hello everyone, hope you're well. I stopped reading at issue 5 as I was a bit underwhelmed. How has the series been since then? 

It's gotten better-ish in places. Bit of a shame you stopped at Issue 5 since that's sort of where the comic starts going somewhere, though I personally don't really like the issue after it.

[Shadowlax]

41 minutes ago, Ernest the Panda said:

@Shadowlax

He meant how the hell are you only just learning of this now when it’s been a widely spread theory since Silver was introduced.

I knew about the son thing with shadow.

I didn't know amy was involved.

[Marco9966]

51 minutes ago, Elseb said:

Hello everyone, hope you're well. I stopped reading at issue 5 as I was a bit underwhelmed. How has the series been since then? 

It's gotten better.

Issue 6-12 are boring.

Issue 13-14 are the same.

But it really starts at issue 15-16-17! I think these issue should have been the first 3 issues! Start there  if you want! It's good so far!

[Dantemustdie00]

On 5/27/2019 at 4:10 PM, Shadowlax said:

On the bumblekast I learned that Ian Flynn feels similarly to myself in regards to humans. That they work better when they are complimenting the characters rather than trying to be the forefront. And that the adventure era humans feel kinda stilted, even maria and gerald. But the humans are so out of focus no ( outside of the film ) that its not anything to really worry about anymore...hopefully.

I'm curious if SEGA themselves still intends to use human characters aside from Eggman, Forces marks the first time in the series we actually seen many Anthro's (or Mobian if you would prefer since they have no official name) aside from Sonic and company, which is something many fans have wanted for the longest time.

[Redbluethunder5]

17 hours ago, DabigRG said:

To be fair, it looked like they had just been corned. And he does get them through the ally while Sonic is talking to Eggman. 

Wait, issue 8?

Ok and AFTER he got them to safety? Why didn't he help Sonic

[Diogenes]

4 minutes ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

Ok and AFTER he got them to safety? Why didn't he help Sonic

He was trying to, by figuring out what Infinite's deal was. He's not so good a fighter as to turn things around when they're outnumbered 5 to 2; jumping in would've just led to them both getting their asses kicked.

[StaticMania]

16 minutes ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

Ok and AFTER he got them to safety? Why didn't he help Sonic

"Woah, this guy's faster than Sonic!"

A repeat of Shadow vs. Tails from Sonic X would've been fine though.

[dbzfan7]

There is no excuse for Forces Tails . The absolute low point of low points.

But anyways IDW has done a million times better than modern games which really isn't difficult. Right now him working on a cure is the best spot he should be in. No one else can do that. Though perhaps more people should be at his workshop or watching his back. Who's to say a horde won't go there? There is no fighting back against it since he can't touch them or risk himself and the cure he's working on. I'm honestly surprised they're just letting him work alone. Surely someone like Eggman would figure that would be dangerous to him.

 

 

[Shadowlax]

In regards to tails in forces. There is actually no excuse. Simply put, tails not being " as good as a fighter "  isn't actually an excuse... one because we have seen him fight. But two because of the story in general. Infinite is a character who would be better suited to manipulating things from the background due to his powerset. Because of development issues, sonic teams being really REALLY bad at creating bad guys and new characters in general as of late outside of dodon-pa , and infinite's entire everything being a really bad rip of shadow the hedgehog and them leaning into that way too hard. Infinite was forced into the forefront and the narrative has to basically bend over backwards for him to function , by making characters not fight like everyone in the control room and tails outside, in competence like silver or just vanish like sonic and shadow, to make this non character vaguely threatening. It speaks to how nothing he is , when the two characters allowed to be mildly competent enter the story they make infinite and his illusions look like nothing contradicting the entire plot set up we were supposed to believe. 

So there is no excuse for what happened to tails because there quite literally is no excuse. Its just bad writing from a non story.

I mentioned shadow in regards infinite and how infinite seemed like leaning into a bunch of shadow traits in a really poor way. And it plays into this, so back in SA2. You notice how shadow only fights sonic? Back then if shadow were to even attempt to fight the entire cast by himself, he would get his ass whipped, handily. Yeah he's stronger now, but he was a much more reasonable foe back then. And instead of making him some big bad, they had him also be conceiving he directed eggman to the lazer to do what he wanted for him. He had plans, goals and was put in position where he was fighting a character in which his character motivations had reasonable push back instead of a nebulous everyone. Tails got to look competent because he got to face his own villain and shadow looked cool because he got to fight someone that gave him some meaning in regards to a character.

This isn't to say that sonic or anyone can't have a huge " Bad guy beats everyone up and no one knows what to do " bad guy. Thanos both in comic and in the MCU works because he's that. And countless other comic book villians, superboy prime, Dr. Doom, DarkSeid and the list goes on and on. The the key elements to characters like these is that they feel like and are presented as the heroes of their own narrative. Even shadow who isn't one of these types of characters in the grand scheme of things, is presented like the hero of his own tale. There are clear motivations, goals and things they achieve, trials and tribulations and entire narrative arc is had on the side of that bad guy , like he's the good guy or rather the protagonist. Infinite gets none of these, in lieu of characterization or an ark, he just makes everyone look incompetent or rather the plot does to justify his character and to do this it either has to make characters wildly out of character, do nothing, or not exist.

Why am I talking about this , as of late. The terribleness of inifnite's character has made me quite interested in him being included in the comic book in general. Because infinite in forces is three separate characters. Sonic Wars infinite, Sonic Forces infinite, and DLC infinite and these variances are quite different to say the least. Given that he most likely would be ruby-less. He would most likely be DLC infinite a character who's a coward making excuses for his own lack of power using other means to by pass that. And even then that's weird because ok, do you lean into the shadow rivaly, if so ... what does that mean? Because in the game, he throws magic ruby dust in shadow's eyes that incapacitates him for a bout... 45-ish seconds, while he turns on the self destruct and vanishes. And that sort of cowardice, and cunning contradicts the flippant overpowered nothing asshole he is for the rest of the game. I'm interested in how he would be characterized, I dunno. And that's dependent on even if we see him again, because there's a good chance, we wont. Dondon-pa a character in a spin of game already has iizuka saying we may see him again, the same can't be said for infinite.

7 hours ago, Dantemustdie00 said:

I'm curious if SEGA themselves still intends to use human characters aside from Eggman, Forces marks the first time in the series we actually seen many Anthro's (or Mobian if you would prefer since they have no official name) aside from Sonic and company, which is something many fans have wanted for the longest time.

I don't quite know. Important Humans in sonic in general tend to be used for more symbolic purposes ( for better or for worse ) than actual practical ones in regards to the games. GUN and Eggman are pretty huge examples of this . And while the normal humans tend to have less symbolic meaning, it played apart in how sega wanted you to believe as a kid that you could find some sonic character in the world and go on an adventure with them. Sonic hanging out with real humans was built into the concept art and something they would peruse to the detriment of the series. True to sonic team fashion, the learned very late ( TWO + Decades ) that people just wanted to see and be cool sonic characters in that world and that might of been why they kept seeing fanart of all those fan characters, and probably would be much more profitable in regards to merchandising to have characters that they can sell in the background rather than normal humans. 

So maybe we wont see them, Sonic now seems to be...overcorrecting for some criticisms made a long time ago and misinterpretations that they think the audience has in some regard. So where that leads us I don't know, but for right now it seems to be leading us into a direction with less humans

[Kuzu]

It's hard to justify any character's change in personality simply because they change with no real forewarning. The change doesn't feel organic and feels like it's done to meet the needs of the plot.

I don't think Amy doing mostly desk work is a bad change, but you're kind of left wondering just how this coincides with how her character is usually portrayed. It's not really consistent and there isn't much of a justification either...it just kind of happens.

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

In regards to tails in forces. There is actually no excuse. Simply put, tails not being " as good as a fighter "  isn't actually an excuse... one because we have seen him fight.

We've also seen him not fight. So what? Characters can contribute in more ways than literally throwing punches, and when you've run into a mysterious new enemy seemingly doing the impossible and he and his 4 buddies are kicking your hero around like a soccer ball your little 8 year old fists are probably not going to be what fixes things.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

But two because of the story in general. Infinite is a character who would be better suited to manipulating things from the background due to his powerset.

Maybe if you interpret his power completely differently from how it actually works but in the game we got he is in fact overwhelmingly powerful and more than capable of being a front-line fighter. And if he was actually a weaselly little manipulator type, there likely wouldn't have been a fight for Tails to not get into in the first place, so the point's moot.

[Shadowlax]

27 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

We've also seen him not fight. So what? Characters can contribute in more ways than literally throwing punches, and when you've run into a mysterious new enemy seemingly doing the impossible and he and his 4 buddies are kicking your hero around like a soccer ball your little 8 year old fists are probably not going to be what fixes things.

He contributed nothing. That's what.

And him trying would at least showed he was worth something, nothing he did later in the story really meant anything. Tails magically turned on like  a machine " Now that sonic is here, I am now allowed to function as character, beep boop all previous characterization must be forgotten to facilitate plot "

 

Quote

Maybe if you interpret his power completely differently from how it actually works but in the game we got he is in fact overwhelmingly powerful and more than capable of being a front-line fighter.

I'm not interpreting it as differently. I'm interpreting it as the game presents it. Like you can die on this hill if you want, but even the game litterally fails to present his powers as anything threatening what's soever and not deserving of being on the front lines until like... the end of the game. The game itself fails to present him as anything interesting, and actively has to remove people from the narrative , make them incompetent, or not have them included to make infinite function.

He wasn't overwhelming powerful, nor were his clones. Sonic proves that the moment he burst out of jail and shadow proves that the monet he comes from...wherever the fuck he comes from. Silver could have just grabbed his ass with telekenisis and threw him into a wall, like he did sonic when he first met him, why not. Because infinite isn't actually that strong, and they nothing to demonstrate that he has any powers except him pulling a sun out his ass at the last moment. The story has to show you why a character is threatening, and they fail to do that the entire narrative except for the very last moment. Which is a gigantic " Oh right we need to actually feel threatened " moment to say the least.

Quote

And if he was actually a weaselly little manipulator type, there likely wouldn't have been a fight for Tails to not get into in the first place, so the point's moot.

As for this point, to put it bluntly you paint yourself as kind of uncreative. There would have been plenty of fights for tails to get into, with the other heroes.

You have a villain who literally has the ability to make clones that can act like and replicate the actions of the characters they are copying to varying degrees. What you do, if you are writing a good story , one about some cowardly villain who blames his losses on others and not his lack of own strength. Is to have that villain break the heroes up. Breaking the heroes up , having them not cooperate and that being the means in which they allow eggman to win. And having the avatar character, a thrid party, go in and try to mend the broken bonds between those characters and to find where some of them have gone through out the turmoil that has been eggman's reign.

The entire game is about friendship. Actually breaking those bonds and having to mend them back together, and the main villian being the one to do so and having him be the great orchestrator of events, not only makes him a much more threatening villian because no one knows who they could trust , it's thematically more interesting and allows everyone to shine and to get insight on everyone's motivations and both negative and positive feelings about eachother. It allows infinite to thrive as a villian because he represents something...instead of nothing

 

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

Oh god, we're back to Forces Tails?

Look, I'm not going to defend the game. Writers sacrifices characters for story. To make Infinite scary, Classic Sonic cool, etc. But is it really that hard to believe that smart like Tails concluded that suicide attack on 6 strong villains that just KOed Sonic  isn't a right move?

Wasn't Lost World about not rushing into action like an idiot? I know that Tails doesn't contribute much later on, but it's less his intentions as much as opportunity.

On 5/27/2019 at 8:36 AM, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

 

Seeing those covers really makes me wish that previous issues (and hope for the next ones) will actually deal with Sonic's fears of roboticisation, rather than just let him go fast and reference older games.

[Sega DogTagz]

I love the thematic parallels to Metal Sonic. That was a great idea and I hope it is some foreshadowing to the endgame of this arc.

[Shadowlax]

it was a nice i wish they would have kept it that way to be quite honest.

[Diogenes]

Just now, Shadowlax said:

He contributed nothing. That's what.

Because the point of the scene was for the heroes to lose. He wasn't going to contribute anything substantial either way.

Just now, Shadowlax said:

And him trying would at least showed he was worth something, nothing he did later in the story really meant anything. Tails magically turned on like  a machine " Now that sonic is here, I am now allowed to function as character, beep boop all previous characterization must be forgotten to facilitate plot "

I'm not arguing against that; they completely fumble Tails' arc from the second he notices Classic. That doesn't mean that every scene he's in and every action he takes is wrong, though.

Just now, Shadowlax said:

I'm not interpreting it as differently. I'm interpreting it as the game presents it.

Even in the first scene he outspeeds Sonic, recreates 4 of his toughest rivals, and they, again, kick around the hero of the series, Sonic the Hedgehog, like he's a soccer ball. If you choose to ignore basic facts of the game, you're inevitably going to come up with wrong conclusions.

Just now, Shadowlax said:

As for this point, to put it bluntly you paint yourself as kind of uncreative. There would have been plenty of fights for tails to get into, with the other heroes.

The fight, the specific fight that we are talking about Tails not being involved in, would not have happened. I'm not saying no fighting would happen across the entire game and I can't believe I actually have to explain this.

Just now, Shadowlax said:

But please keep telling me how you taking this shitty story at face value that doesn't bother explain itself or its characters, is some how showing its story and presenting its characters.

Well you've got two choices: take the story at face value and work with what it offers, or just make shit up. I prefer the intellectually honest and potentially productive line of discussion. But that's not actually of any use if people can't get on the same page about basic facts, I guess.

[Shadowlax]

8 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Even in the first scene he outspeeds Sonic, recreates 4 of his toughest rivals, and they, again, kick around the hero of the series, Sonic the Hedgehog, like he's a soccer ball. If you choose to ignore basic facts of the game, you're inevitably going to come up with wrong conclusions.

 

And a few secenes later, sonic is able to move just as fast as him for no reason, unexplained and shadow and then everyone else is able to easily dispatch his clones. Making the other characters inability to dispatch said clones , look impossible considering a kick would have done the same thing and most of the cast despite not being sonic can move pretty damn fast and sonic was going no where near full speed fighting him... means they could have fairly easily dispatched him. The first scene isn't the issue, its actually pretty good, its that no scene after that attempts to justify it makes it retroactively bad.

I didn't ignore basic facts of the game, I payed attention to the game longer than the first cutscene to demonstrate how contradictory  it is

Quote

Well you've got two choices: take the story at face value and work with what it offers, or just make shit up. I prefer the intellectually honest and potentially productive line of discussion. But that's not actually of any use if people can't get on the same page about basic facts, I guess.

Option 3, analyze it and understand why's it bad and accept that. And sort of move on.  Intellectual honesty isn't just taking things at face value, you can analyze and understand why things are bad. To suggest that it is dishonest to do otherwise is... childish... at best

You are the one who can't get on with basic facts, you seem to have created an imaginary world where the rest of forces didn't happen. You can live in that world if you want, I suffered through that game, i'm not.

[Diogenes]

5 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I didn't ignore basic facts of the game, I payed attention to the game longer than the first cutscene to demonstrate how contradictory  it is

The heroes eventually overcoming the threat they were initially beaten by is not in fact a contradiction.

5 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Option 3, analyze it and understand why's it bad and accept that.

That's option 1. Except you're not actually willing to do that.

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Diogenes said:

The heroes eventually overcoming the threat they were initially beaten by is not in fact a contradiction.

Heroes loosing the entire world to a threat that could have been dispatched at ease and the story skipping over that entire process to have that villian take over the world, and then when the story allows for the heroes to act they defeat him fairly quickly is a bit of a contradiction , yes.

Its almost as if you need to show that process in depth on how its being done , so you can show how threatening they are, like with scenes... and not text. To bad sega never did that before. To bad there isn't a character who infinite is clearly modeled after who did the exact same thing i sonic adventure 2 a game that came out almost two decades ago that some how has better scene direction and story telling than one that came out in 2017.

Almost.

Just now, Diogenes said:

That's option 1. Except you're not actually willing to do that.

but I did, and if you can't see that then you are actually unwilling to have a conversation. Had a giant block of text last page.  And if you aren't then, have a nice day.

Apparently differing opinions from yours is intellectual dishonestly. I wouldn't discuss things at all if I were you.