Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Marco9966]

4 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

It should be noted that the current writer of the comic openly admitted that is so convoluted  that he doesn't even want to introduce the premise into the comic's yet.  I'm not saying you should or should not think its important. But the guy who's known for doing cool shit with the franchises funky lore even went " that's stupid " .

Yeah listen to the latest bumblkast. He's always using the vocabulary SEGA forces him to use.

[Big Panda]

The problem is, even if Sega were to change their tune later on, and Sonic’s world in the IDW-verse officially became a mobian/human cohabitation, I worry Ian has left it a bit too long to not have it be distracting when it happens.

All of the locales we’ve seen in the comic so far have been purely mobian-based, including cities being inhabited entirely by them.

With the metal virus being such a grand-scale event, it’d be hard not to wonder why it seems to be only affecting mobians, with humans being miraculously spared from it. Not to mention this would absolutely be the sort of thing organisations like GUN would get involved in.

[MetalSkulkBane]

There is simple explanation how SA1 works with Two Worlds idea

Angel Island was seen in Earth and Mobius, right? So logically other large masses can move as well. So echidna ruins were on Mobius first, then got teleported on earth, like Eggman's base in Sonic X

Honestly I like to thing there was some giant places-switcheroo in the past, which would explain how Zones work and how Ice Cap can be so neart to Sandopolis.

(Aslo, echidna ruins kinda have to be on Earth, not Ancient Island. Gerald studied them for his Artificial Chaos robots.

[Zulon Eredas]

So...I missed out on getting the annual.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

 

IIRC, the Jungle is kinda ambiguous about of what it's part of. You don't have to tweak a lot SA to say it's part of Angel Island (it's not more strange than the question of if Red Mountain and Ice Cap are part of it.

The thing is Red Mountain is clearly a part of Angel Island though, whereas the Jungle would've had to already be there due to the presence of Big's Hut, the archeologists(Relic!) minecart track, and the Final Egg.

3 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

It would also be quite compatible with Sand Road/Hill being part of Sandopolis (something you can assume with TSR) and would simplify most of it). Just using this assumption would solve most of this… 

Oh dear, I didn't think about that.

Granted, Team Sonic Racing is inherently weird given it's intro, but whatever.

3 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

And I love the idea of Big being randomly an inhabitant of Angel Island.

Mmm...somewhat.

2 hours ago, Ernest the Panda said:

The problem is, even if Sega were to change their tune later on, and Sonic’s world in the IDW-verse officially became a mobian/human cohabitation, I worry Ian has left it a bit too long to not have it be distracting when it happens.

All of the locales we’ve seen in the comic so far have been purely mobian-based, including cities being inhabited entirely by them.

With the metal virus being such a grand-scale event, it’d be hard not to wonder why it seems to be only affecting mobians, with humans being miraculously spared from it. Not to mention this would absolutely be the sort of thing organisations like GUN would get involved in.

Eggman is still racist.

1 hour ago, Zulon Eredas said:

So...I missed out on getting the annual.

Oh, that's a bit of a shame. It was kind of a fun break(or rather breaks) from the comic proper.

[Razule]

Since this a more game-accurate world, I don't think Ian would be able to really explain it much more than SEGA has. He won't even say how Silver is able to time travel. He's probably just going to not directly contradict it while making vague references to planets and dimensions that could maybe be alluding to Two Worlds.

[Zulon Eredas]

5 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Oh, that's a bit of a shame. It was kind of a fun break(or rather breaks) from the comic proper.

My comic shop guy's got a convention he's going to, so he'll try and acquire the issue, but I'm not holding my breath 

[DabigRG]

27 minutes ago, Zulon Eredas said:

My comic shop guy's got a convention he's going to, so he'll try and acquire the issue, but I'm not holding my breath 

Ah. A fingercrosser.

Have you tried looking online?

[Zulon Eredas]

I only buy stuff off amazon, and they only have the Kindle edition.

[DabigRG]

So, what's your game plan of anticipating the next four issues?

1 minute ago, Zulon Eredas said:

I only buy stuff off amazon, and they only have the Kindle edition.

Oh. Well shoot.

[Multikaris]

On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 5:03 PM, Silvereyes said:

The IDW run has 17 issues, a one shot, and an Annual out so far. Archie Sonic has almost 300 issues of Sonic the Hedgehog, nearly a 100 issues of Sonic Universe, 32 issues of Knuckles the Echidna, 8 Specials and 15 Super Specials, as well as a few other things, with the Archie continuity somewhere around 450 issues. Include Sonic X and Sonic Boom comics, that bumps it up to near 500. I don't think there is anything wrong in saying which one you prefer, but frankly, I think it is impossible to do any real comparison because IDW is still very much in its infancy and has, what, not even 5% of the quantity Archie had built up?

Fleetway had 184 issues of distinct stories, several more of reprints,  plus a number of Specials and Poster Mags. Include the Grandreams annuals and comic strip to bolster it further.

[Silvereyes]

18 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Fleetway had 184 issues of distinct stories, several more of reprints,  plus a number of Specials and Poster Mags. Include the Grandreams annuals and comic strip to bolster it further. 

That's interesting. I'm not sure if you're saying I'm wrong or anything. I should really get around to reading Sonic the Comic, it does sound fascinating.

[Salamander]

9 hours ago, Razule said:

Since this a more game-accurate world, I don't think Ian would be able to really explain it much more than SEGA has. He won't even say how Silver is able to time travel. He's probably just going to not directly contradict it while making making vague references to planets and dimensions that could maybe be alluding to Two Worlds.

This is exactly it.

Ian Flynn will never commit to showing the two worlds because even Sonic Team aren't committed to the idea.  Nothing in the games, and I don't think even any statement by a Sonic Team member, has ever acknowledged there being two planets or a portal between them.  The most you'll ever get, as a player, is "I wonder where all the humans/animals are in this game?", but "Standing just off-camera" is honestly a better-fit explanation in every single instance.  It's genuinely not clear if the two-worlds nonsense is even meant to be literal.  But this is all related to a bigger problem - that Sonic Team no longer wish to make decisions.

Sonic Team are treading water.  Is Silver still from the future or not, is Blaze still from another world or not, is this new villain dead or alive...  They'll never even address the question in their games because they're terrified that it might limit what they do later.  They've put themselves in this paradoxical position where they refuse to make any canon statements in case it contradicts any other canon statements they might want to make in the future.  Every single choice they make is dedicated to ensuring that they can continue to make unambitious games without having to think about either the past or the future.  The comics will necessarily be the same.  So long as Sonic Team wish the comics to remain game-accurate, nothing will be done that cannot be undone in the future.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, FFWF said:

This is exactly it.

Ian Flynn will never commit to showing the two worlds because even Sonic Team aren't committed to the idea.  Nothing in the games, and I don't think even any statement by a Sonic Team member, has ever acknowledged there being two planets or a portal between them.  The most you'll ever get, as a player, is "I wonder where all the humans/animals are in this game?", but "Standing just off-camera" is honestly a better-fit explanation in every single instance.  It's genuinely not clear if the two-worlds nonsense is even meant to be literal.  But this is all related to a bigger problem - that Sonic Team no longer wish to make decisions.

Sonic Team are treading water.  Is Silver still from the future or not, is Blaze still from another world or not, is this new villain dead or alive...  They'll never even address the question in their games because they're terrified that it might limit what they do later.  They've put themselves in this paradoxical position where they refuse to make any canon statements in case it contradicts any other canon statements they might want to make in the future.  Every single choice they make is dedicated to ensuring that they can continue to make unambitious games without having to think about either the past or the future.  The comics will necessarily be the same.  So long as Sonic Team wish the comics to remain game-accurate, nothing will be done that cannot be undone in the future.

To be fair to sega this isn't a unique practice, and to also be fair to sega while they haven't said anything official on infinite their lack of speech in comparison to dondan pa and sticks says wonders about how they feel about him , at least in my opinion. Mephilies and ifninite shall live out their days in the dumpster along with everything that isn't sticks from sonic boom.

However the issue with this practice while not unique is because they try to capitalize on nostalgia while also using elements of this franchise. While I can't vouch for silver because it seems from an outside perspective folks seem to like silver based on an entirely constructed personality and things nothing based soley in the games really. Blaze on the other hand is popular because of rush and who she is and what she is about , but they never reference that... she's just blaze. Now obviously there are characters who have transcended such things like knuckles  ( for better or for worse ) but then you have characters like shadow who isn't friends with his friends anymore. Even in spin off games like TSR Rouge acts like she doesn't know the guy. Along with recent revelations from flynn it makes sense that he decided to keep their interacts minimal in the comics.

They try to use these characters but don't want to use any of the cool shit that has endeared us to these characters. And then when they criticism on such thing they don't understand.

So you are right, game accuracy plays into the meaninglessness of the situation.

[DabigRG]

On 6/15/2019 at 8:25 AM, Marco9966 said:

Mystic ruins is the home of the echidnas, Tikal, Big, Tails and his workshop, and Angel Island!!

So the train is like a portal train. It's not so hard to imagine.

The implication is that the Mystic Ruins is a place that's been not far from Station Square and that various locals traveled between both over time to set up shop. Hence the ending, where Tikal explains that the Chao species lived on and simply found new places to live with the Emerald Shrine set aloft on Angel Island. To say nothing of the archeologists, who have been setting up shop to explore the Mystic Ruins for a fair amount of time and comment on Angel Island dropping into the nearby ocean over night. 

And if we're going full on with the Sonic X outline, the Two Worlds were once one to begin with, but for reasons that may or may not be known, split apart at some point. It's not unreasonable to think that while some things were segregated with that event, others remained where they were and became displaced from what would be the norm. Thus how the various Echidna Tribes previously conquered areas in both worlds and why Big is(outside of preboot Archie) this random Cat Mobian living in the jungle with a normal frog.

Unlike Sonic X, travel between the two worlds is apparently little note than a skip hop and a jump. Hence why Amy decided to live in an apartment there for however long, Tails set up a workshop to test out new planes, Eggman came "home" to investigate the stone tablets and set up the Final Egg away from Station Square, and Sonic came on vacation.

[Big Panda]

10 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Unlike Sonic X, travel between the two worlds is apparently little note than a skip hop and a jump. Hence why Amy decided to live in an apartment there for however long, Tails set up a workshop to test out new planes, Eggman came "home" to investigate the stone tablets and set up the Final Egg away from Station Square, and Sonic came on vacation.

I thought that was more because of them thinking “well we’re not going home again anytime soon so I may as well prepare for a long stay”.

I also personally assumed Tails’ workshop in the SA1 arc was his original workshop from their home world and it was one of the many things that began popping up on Earth after the Chaos Control messed everything up.

[DabigRG]

11 hours ago, FFWF said:

.  The most you'll ever get, as a player, is "I wonder where all the humans/animals are in this game?", but "Standing just off-camera" is honestly a better-fit explanation in every single instance.  It's genuinely not clear if the two-worlds nonsense is even meant to be literal. 

That's probably the best way to look at, yeah.

11 hours ago, FFWF said:

But this is all related to a bigger problem - that Sonic Team no longer wish to make decisions. 

Mm...is it?

Sounds like a rather broad territory of a theory.

11 hours ago, FFWF said:

Sonic Team are treading water.  Is Silver still from the future or not, is Blaze still from another world or not, is this new villain dead or alive...  

Silver&Dr.Nega and Blaze were confirmed already: they're from the future and a parallel dimension, respectively.

Infinite might as well be dead for several reasons, but I suppose the next few games technically have a chance to drop jaws.

11 hours ago, FFWF said:

They'll never even address the question in their games because they're terrified that it might limit what they do later.  They've put themselves in this paradoxical position where they refuse to make any canon statements in case it contradicts any other canon statements they might want to make in the future.  Every single choice they make is dedicated to ensuring that they can continue to make unambitious games without having to think about either the past or the future.  The comics will necessarily be the same.  So long as Sonic Team wish the comics to remain game-accurate, nothing will be done that cannot be undone in the future.

Well yeah, but what Iuzuka-san says generally goes.

9 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 Mephilies and ifninite shall live out their days in the dumpster along with everything that isn't sticks from sonic boom.

 

Mephiles was already wiped out of existence by proxy in his introduction, though.

Infinite is indeed a most likely thing, though.

[Splash the Otter]

10 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

To be fair to sega this isn't a unique practice, and to also be fair to sega while they haven't said anything official on infinite their lack of speech in comparison to dondan pa and sticks says wonders about how they feel about him , at least in my opinion. Mephilies and ifninite shall live out their days in the dumpster along with everything that isn't sticks from sonic boom.

I don't think we've seen the last of Infinite. He's too cool to just abandon like that!

[Dr. Detective]

While its true that they've indeed specified that Blaze is from another dimension and Silver is from the future (even providing the number of years in an actual game instead of in a comic or a character profile, finally) they're still very much not in tune with ironing out the specifics behind their characters. It's certainly a little better now that where they're from has been sorted out and they seem a little reluctant to use the most confusing component about the two them, which is Eggman Nega (it's weird because they still gave him his own 25th anniversary comic and he was still in the Rio Olympics, so he hasn't been scrapped either) but it's usually important for things about a character and their state of being to be a bit more clear.

For instance, with Silver, I think they still want him to be from a future in ruins because that's what his character bios keep saying about him and it's even the direction the IDW comics are taking. However, it's not really been specified within the games that this is the case. In the case of Sonic Colors DS, Silver says the exact opposite, stating that everyone is happy in the future. If whatever ruined his future is being kept a mystery, that's fine. I actually prefer that be kept a secret so as to keep things appropriately ominous but I still need to know the specifics behind what Silver's deal is. I love him a lot more now that his dorkishness is being emphasized a lot but it's still being held back a bit by stuff like that where detail surrounding who the character is and their state of life is out there in interviews, character bios, and descriptions but never shown to us within the active plot.

We can speculate based on what little is talked about but until they're ready to commit to something, they probably won't show it. 

That's why I feel it best to ignore the two worlds thing and treat it like Iizuka's odd little headcanon until it actually affects something within the plot. In Forces there were way more animals then there used to be but that doesn't negate the idea that humans could still be living there. Vice-Versa for something like Unleashed. Eggman is a human and he's in Forces. Sonic's an animal and he's in Unleashed. We don't have any reason not to assume they're just in areas populated by more of one kind of species. The game never tells us this isn't the case and no one has any real reason to assume otherwise. No one outside of the informed part of the Sonic fanbase probably even knows about it and still thinks they all take place on the same planet because it was just something talked about in an interview they never read. 

It's weird because they're making decisions that only people who DO care about the story and lore would make. It really does feel like they're just super bad at it. Either that or they can't decide on something as a group. They probably need to just get ONE person to iron this all out and be the guy who keeps the lore and character stuff in check. 

[DabigRG]

50 minutes ago, Ernest the Panda said:

I thought that was more because of them thinking “well we’re not going home again anytime soon so I may as well prepare for a long stay”.

I also personally assumed Tails’ workshop in the SA1 arc was his original workshop from their home world and it was one of the many things that began popping up on Earth after the Chaos Control messed everything up.

IIRC Chuck explained that in the finale storyline of Season 2: the two worlds were once one and split apart a long time ago. Hence why the effects of the freak accident Chaos Control specifically warped Sonic's friends, Eggman, and Rouge there, as well as why the second one caused by Super Sonic destroying the Eggsterminator warped Angel Island, the Chaotix's Office, Vanilla, Flickies, the Bocchans(?), and possibly Big & Froggy there afterwards. However, since they've spent so long apart, they've since developed their own space-time properties and thus the continued bridging of the two was starting to result in an attempt re-regulation that would've caused time to stop entirely.

In Sonic X itself, sure, for the most part.  I wanna say Tails' workshop was a joint effort with Chuck, but that might just be me remember my post.

[Shadowlax]

I feel as though the issue with tyring to pretend its iizuka's head canon unlike everything else there is are actual consequences of this thematically. Example " Shadow can't do chaos control with out chaos emeralds " not only was that not like inline with how the games presented he obviously changed his mind because he's doing more now. You can just ignore it, because the games actively contradict it untill iizuka goes with the flow so to speak.

This is inline with presentation. That's the issue. You can pretend no humans are around, but then it brings up the question " What happened to gun " even harder, but more so what happened to the space colony arc. because you go to space in that game and that would most likely be in the orbit of the planet. But lets say you ignore all that, maybe the arc was conviently out of frame  and iizuka forgot eggman pissed on the moon and broke it . You go all over the world in that game, you save the whole world in that game. You telling me there was just no humans no where? No, they don't exist. When it was the other way around, your characters were the animals and had houses shit and it was mostly humans so you could make the assumptions. But now that doesn't work in the reverse, it thematically set up to be that way. Even the characters dialog with specific human connections are said in such a way to avoid all that entirely. You can't ignore it, its to ingrained into the setting.

My suggestion with the two worlds thing is to just deal with it as we come across it. It feels like sonic is going in a different direction, see where it goes. Because its to prominent to ignore. Its giant fishing purple cat in the room screaming about frogs, we don't have the power to direct it so we can at least see where it goes to deal with the problem.

56 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

I don't think we've seen the last of Infinite. He's too cool to just abandon like that!

I have issues with infinite to be fair. But my issues aren't why I think he's gone. I just don't think sega got out of that character what they wanted. Its very clear they wanted infinite and forces to be a different game and what they had to make they don't seem to be particularly proud of and imagine that character is a weird mutation of what they saw that character from the beginning. Whether it just be through lack of dev time, or the ability to make the game they wanted , or just looking at the character for a while realizing he ain't that great but its too far gone now ( I think its bit of everything but that's me ).

I just think they wanna move on.

[DabigRG]

48 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

While its true that they've indeed specified that Blaze is from another dimension and Silver is from the future (even providing the number of years in an actual game instead of in a comic or a character profile, finally) they're still very much not in tune with ironing out the specifics behind their characters.

How so?

Also, was that not clarified before TSR?

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It's certainly a little better now that where they're from has been sorted out and they seem a little reluctant to use the most confusing component about the two them, which is Eggman Nega (it's weird because they still gave him his own 25th anniversary comic and he was still in the Rio Olympics, so he hasn't been scrapped either) but it's usually important for things about a character and their state of being to be a bit more clear.

Dr. Nega is at least a case where they stopped using Silver and especially Blaze in major appearances on top of doing other things with spacetime continuum less, so they haven't had reason to put him in another major game.

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

That's why I feel it best to ignore the two worlds thing and treat it like Iizuka's odd little headcanon until it actually affects something within the plot. In Forces there were way more animals then there used to be but that doesn't negate the idea that humans could still be living there. Vice-Versa for something like Unleashed. Eggman is a human and he's in Forces. Sonic's an animal and he's in Unleashed. We don't have any reason to assume they're just in areas populated by more of one kind of species.

He did also mention that Sonic and Eggman among others are able to travel between the two, though.

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

. The game never tells us this isn't the case and no one has any real reason to assume otherwise. No one outside of the informed part of the Sonic fanbase probably even knows about it and still thinks they all take place on the same planet because it was just something talked about in an interview they never read. 

It's weird because they're making decisions that only people who DO care about the story and lore would make. It really does feel like they're just super bad at it. Either that or they can't decide on something as a group. They probably need to just get ONE person to iron this all out and be the guy who keeps the lore and character stuff in check. 

Hm, fair point.

 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

How so?

Also, was that not clarified before TSR?

I just explained how so. I also said where it was clarified outside of TSR in that same sentence.

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

He did also mention that Sonic and Eggman among others are able to travel between the two, though.

It doesn't matter. That doesn't change the fact that we haven't seen it happen and have been presented with no reason within any of the game's plots to believe it is.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I feel as though the issue with tyring to pretend its iizuka's head canon unlike everything else there is are actual consequences of this thematically. Example " Shadow can't do chaos control with out chaos emeralds " not only was that not like inline with how the games presented he obviously changed his mind because he's doing more now. You can just ignore it, because the games actively contradict it untill iizuka goes with the flow so to speak.

This is inline with presentation. That's the issue. You can pretend no humans are around, but then it brings up the question " What happened to gun " even harder, but more so what happened to the space colony arc. because you go to space in that game and that would most likely be in the orbit of the planet. But lets say you ignore all that, maybe the arc was conviently out of frame  and iizuka forgot eggman pissed on the moon and broke it . You go all over the world in that game, you save the whole world in that game. You telling me there was just no humans no where? No, they don't exist. When it was the other way around, your characters were the animals and had houses shit and it was mostly humans so you could make the assumptions. But now that doesn't work in the reverse, it thematically set up to be that way. Even the characters dialog with specific human connections are said in such a way to avoid all that entirely. You can't ignore it, its to ingrained into the setting.

Eh, again, I'm not sure the "just doesn't/won't exist" mantra is really a warranted one, never mind an empirical one.

It's really down to the developers and writers not being great to remembering and/or taking into account the implication of everything that came before. Forces in particular is clearly made of them having a few decent to good ideas that they just threw together into a final product that's more about looking intense than having much of a value to rate it with.

[Silvereyes]

I find the 2 worlds thing interesting just purely for how convoluted it is. I know you can nitpick the idea that every Sonic game takes place on one Mobius, with the stated inconsistencies of games like Adventures 1 and 2 and Unleashed against the likes of Heroes and Forces, but I don't really see why you can't just say it takes place on one Mobius with say different continents. Perhaps it doesn't hold under a huge amount of scrutiny, but then alot of Sonic's continuity doesn't really hold up that much either if you really think about it for too long with the sheer number of spin-off games.

I just find it all abit weird and a bit half assed I suppose. Why the two worlds thing? Why the insistence on defining characters like Team Hooligan as "classic" only, if half the classics characters are both "classic" and "modern". Why is Zavok sticking around despite seemingly noone wanting him around, and what about the other Deadly members? Why no explanation about the Wisps appearing all the time now? If Silver and Blaze are going to remain as recurring elements, why not just have them like in Sonic's world? It wouldn't take much of a stretch considering Blaze doesn't have any friends in her place - except Marine, but who would want to live with her - and Silver's future sucks... maybe? Again, as far as we know, why can't he just live in Sonic's world? You could even give him the excuse of saying he has to stay in Sonic's time so that he can make the future good, like what they are doing with Silver in IDW right now.

Honestly, if Sonic Team wants to genuinely make Sonic a coherent universe, they should probably just do at the very least a soft reboot. Otherwise you're just piling on the problems in my opinion.