Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, SBR2 said:

Who the hell would want to follow a series where the hero keeps losing?

Maybe he wouldn't "keep" losing.

But, villains always losing...or even failing to make any significant impact is not exactly invest breeding.

[Badnik Zero]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Where was this stated? Got the source?

I thought it was stated in some dev diary for Chronicles, but nevermind. I don’t have a source.

[GentlemanX]

19 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

But the way people talk it sounds like they want Eggman to have a full complete victory and that's just not a satisfying narrative. 

You say this as though the series was going to end after an Eggman victory.

I'll use a Power Rangers analogy. The ends of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers Turbo have distinct major losses to the respective villains. For all intents and purposes those stories have a victorious villain ending. But Power Rangers was at least at that point a flowing narrative where the story kept going. The Rangers lost to Zedd and Rita, but bounced back against the Machine Empire. They were defeated by Divatox, but managed to defeat Dark Spectre, Astronoma, and the Alliance of Evil. 

Like with Power Rangers, the Sonic series is never ending, so it has the luxury to know when one story arc ends, another will inevitably replace it. Maybe Eggman gets a decisive victory and the status quo changes. But in the next arc, Sonic will still be fighting to get things back to normal, or confronting a different threat. No one here is likely to want "I want Eggman to beat Sonic and then that's the end of the series", they just want things to feel like there's a genuine back and forth without things always reverting to the status quo all the time. In the games it's expected due to the stand alone nature of them, beyond introducing new characters. But for an ongoing narrative focused on long term storytelling, people expect more variety in a number of ways.

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

 

I'll use a Power Rangers analogy. The ends of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers Turbo have distinct major losses to the respective villains. For all intents and purposes those stories have a victorious villain ending. But Power Rangers was at least at that point a flowing narrative where the story kept going. The Rangers lost to Zedd and Rita, but bounced back against the Machine Empire. They were defeated by Divatox, but managed to defeat Dark Spectre, Astronoma, and the Alliance of Evil. 

I'm not that big on Power Rangers, but aren't those outlier villains(which includes Rita, I noticed) defeated eventually?

[Kellodrawsalot]

4 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Yeah, see, that's kinda the thing I think of when it comes to the designs of some Archie characters, but especially the Brotherhood and some other Echidna characters.

It's like, what are you supposed to do with that situation? Knuckles was the only example in the games and if you want to have more echidnas in a Sonic related property, you have to look at him and be able to associate them as the same species.

And not for nothing, some of them had some pretty neat/distinct designs about them. Sure, Locke initially being "Knuckles as Obi-Wan Kenobi" was a littel graceless, but since he's also meant to be his dad, there's not too much wiggle room.

Uh, actually that was partly because SEGA gave them issues of the comics when they asked for ideas on background related to Knuckles.

Hehehe, woops.

Didn't Bioware researched the comics on them own? That's why the comic had both Satam and Archie references it to them and I believe they mentioned it themselves.

 

Also the whole concept of ''parents have to be the copy of their kids'' is just lazy design overall most of he echidna Designs were just pretty darn lazy and felt out of place with Sonic's universe overall with the clothes they were worn were obvious Star Trek inspired, The only one that looked more creative was Julie-Su and she was designed by Spaz, Compare that to the other echidna's in Sonic Adventure, not only does Tikal stand out but the other echidna's have facial hair and  different body types.

atleast Bioware and Sirene  knew what they were doing

(kind of funny that female echidna's so far are orange)

[SBR2]

1 hour ago, GentlemanX said:

You say this as though the series was going to end after an Eggman victory.

I'll use a Power Rangers analogy. The ends of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers Turbo have distinct major losses to the respective villains. For all intents and purposes those stories have a victorious villain ending. But Power Rangers was at least at that point a flowing narrative where the story kept going. The Rangers lost to Zedd and Rita, but bounced back against the Machine Empire. They were defeated by Divatox, but managed to defeat Dark Spectre, Astronoma, and the Alliance of Evil. 

Like with Power Rangers, the Sonic series is never ending, so it has the luxury to know when one story arc ends, another will inevitably replace it. Maybe Eggman gets a decisive victory and the status quo changes. But in the next arc, Sonic will still be fighting to get things back to normal, or confronting a different threat. No one here is likely to want "I want Eggman to beat Sonic and then that's the end of the series", they just want things to feel like there's a genuine back and forth without things always reverting to the status quo all the time. In the games it's expected due to the stand alone nature of them, beyond introducing new characters. But for an ongoing narrative focused on long term storytelling, people expect more variety in a number of ways.

Now see if that's what people are wanting that's fine (and again is essentially what's currently happening) but the way people are phrasing it makes it sound like they want Sonic to lose and never recover from that loss. Which would be bad storytelling. A loss that Sonic comes back from, like the Metal Virus, is perfectly fine but one that he never comes back from? What would be the point of that?

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Where was this stated? Got the source?

Hm...I can't seem to find a specific source on that. Odd.

.

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Didn't Bioware researched the comics on them own? That's why the comic had both Satam and Archie references it to them and I believe they mentioned it themselves.

I can't seem to find anything on them commenting either way, so I honestly don't know either way.

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

 

Also the whole concept of ''parents have to be the copy of their kids'' is just lazy design

I didn't say copy, I implied there should some resemblance. Heck, I specifically noted that his original design probably could've been better.

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

overall most of he echidna Designs were just pretty darn lazy and felt out of place with Sonic's universe overall with the clothes they were worn were obvious Star Trek inspired, 

Or Star Wars in Locke and Wynmacher's case. It wasn't all of them, obviously, but whatever.

Still, whaddya gonna do? There was also so much they could pull from at the time. Or heck, even now.

 

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

The only one that looked more creative was Julie-Su and she was designed by Spaz,

Was she? I've heard that before, so I believe it, but I'm blanking on when exactly he would've drawn her compared to her debut.

I think there were at least few others, for what it's worth.

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

 Compare that to the other echidna's in Sonic Adventure, not only does Tikal stand out

Which was done by SEGA themselves. At the debut of the series's redesign, even.

 

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Compare that to the other echidna's in Sonic Adventure, not only does Tikal stand out but the other echidna's have facial hair and  different body types.

Huh. Half of Locke.

On the other half, though, I thought the other Echidna's besides Pachacamac were essentially Knuckles edits in-game?

40 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

 

atleast Bioware and Sirene  knew what they were doing

(kind of funny that female echidna's so far are orange)

Except Lara-Le, Lien-Da, & Lara-Su being crimson and Julie-Su & Janelle-Li(?) being pink, for better or worse.

[StaticMania]

26 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Which would be bad storytelling.

Maybe for some it would be bad storytelling.

But considering what tends to actually happens 100% of the time, unless it's off screen, an elongated period of time where the villain is on top "after on-screen"  victory is not bad.

My mindset is specifically the story ends when the hero loses, because ideal outcomes are boring.

[DabigRG]

On the Sonic struggling vs Eggman gaining thing, it makes some degree of sense objectively. Since "the good guys win and the bad guys lose" is just the way of things, a story as tried & true as this series needs to vary and shake things up every once in a while. Or within a single plotline, there generally needs to be some work put into having the hero overcome the threat posed by the villain before they can defeat them. 

Personally though, I don't quite see it with this arc. Eggman had the advantage before he was even thinking about experimenting thanks to Starline jailbreaking Rough & Tumble. Meanwhile, Sonic is forced to save the day against something that not only practically neuters how he normally does things, but inherently involves taking numbers in a way that multiplies as they are filed.

So on that basis, it's not applicable. 

[Badnik Zero]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

Hm...I can't seem to find a specific source on that. Odd.

I found the dev diary. The quote in question:

“It was a great chance to look at this huge huge bunch of stuff, and pick really cool things”... With this quote coming after they specifically mention the comics and TV shows, with cuts to Archie and AoStH. So yes, they did review a lot of (presumably Western media) source material, for “really cool things”. Which is how you get techno interdimensional Echidnas in a game.

[DabigRG]

53 minutes ago, Badnik Zero said:

I found the dev diary. The quote in question:

“It was a great chance to look at this huge huge bunch of stuff, and pick really cool things”... With this quote coming after they specifically mention the comics and TV shows, with cuts to Archie and AoStH. So yes, they did review a lot of (presumably Western media) source material, for “really cool things”. Which is how you get techno interdimensional Echidnas in a game.

Huh. Okay then. 

 

Guess that fits the jingoism better. 

[Celestia]

8 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Now see if that's what people are wanting that's fine (and again is essentially what's currently happening) but the way people are phrasing it makes it sound like they want Sonic to lose and never recover from that loss. Which would be bad storytelling. A loss that Sonic comes back from, like the Metal Virus, is perfectly fine but one that he never comes back from? What would be the point of that?

It depends on what the loss is. More to the point I don't think anyone is saying it has to be something completely irreversible, but often with ongoing storylines in this franchise (including the latter...maybe 25% or so of Archie's run) it's something where either 1) the consequences don't actually matter much in the long run or 2) it's fixed not long after. Which of course is perfectly fine in some cases, but variety is good, yeah?

Some rare examples from the games: Sonic and friends win in the end in Sonic Adventure 1, but Station Square is of course still in ruins. This never really comes up again, with the next game mentioning the city in such a way that doesn't even make much sense at pure face value.

Spoiler

I do strongly feel that not everything has to be explained in great detail on screen--I think it's perfectly logical to assume Tails got the Emerald later on, from people who survived the Perfect Chaos attack, but uh. I digress.

Similarly SA2 ends with Shadow ambiguously dying, but he comes back in literally the very next 3D game (made worse by how nonchalant Heroes was about it, up until sort of trying to set up a mystery at the end).

Now all that said, as far as the games are concerned, I don't mind that things wrap up nicely all the time. They're clearly designed to be episodic, and I'd honestly say it works fine! I do really wish they'd try to have ongoing character arcs, but I could rant about that all day. Alternate media stuff, this book included, generally have the opposite structure, which means there's more room for the kind of thing people are asking for here.

[Wraith]

I'm fine with happy endings but even keeping suspension of disbelief in mind this art feels kinda weightless. I can't really place why though. 

[knuckles20]

22 hours ago, DabigRG said:

I'm not that big on Power Rangers, but aren't those outlier villains(which includes Rita, I noticed) defeated eventually?

Plus they eventually had more villains to face; they didn’t spend 26 years fighting the same person.

[Redbluethunder5]

15 hours ago, SBR2 said:

I don't find the idea of the hero failing interesting no. Who the hell would want to follow a series where the hero keeps losing?

No one said that Sonic has to always lose,but losing once in a while,yes.

Heroes can lose sometimes

[DabigRG]

11 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Plus they eventually had more than one villain to face; they didn’t spend 26 years fighting the same person.

Very very pivotal point, indeed.

[Redbluethunder5]

14 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Now see if that's what people are wanting that's fine (and again is essentially what's currently happening) but the way people are phrasing it makes it sound like they want Sonic to lose and never recover from that loss. Which would be bad storytelling. A loss that Sonic comes back from, like the Metal Virus, is perfectly fine but one that he never comes back from? What would be the point of that?

No: people want to see Sonic being effected by losing,see him recover in a belivable way. Not having him sad in one scene,than instantly happy in another one

[SBR2]

3 hours ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

No: people want to see Sonic being effected by losing,see him recover in a belivable way. Not having him sad in one scene,than instantly happy in another one

And is that not what's happeningin the comics? Is Sonic not in a majorly grim senerio? 

As for "Instantly" happy when has that happened ever? Even in Lost World he got pissed and stayed that way. 

[Kellodrawsalot]

3 hours ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

No: people want to see Sonic being effected by losing,see him recover in a belivable way. Not having him sad in one scene,than instantly happy in another one

but that's what's happening in the comics right now. Sonic is feeling guilty about the ones he couldnt protect like Charmy,, he's mostly trying to keep his cool because he knows Eggman wants to see him lose it and get angry or overly  depressed.

[Mauro Fonseca]

I can get people wanting Eggman to win and whatever

 

What I don't understand is why want this now

It's a zombie story

Eggman pretty specifically has to lose unless you want year 3 to be 12 issues of zombots going "uuugh" endlessly

In this specific story Eggman very obviously has to lose and I'm not sure how this isn't pretty clear

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Idw has posted a Tangle Whisper#1 sneak peek. 

Spoiler

Tangle you dork.

 

[Big Panda]

“Why does Whisper look so concerned?”

...why do you think?? xD

[DabigRG]

19 minutes ago, The KKM said:

 

It's a zombie story

Eggman pretty specifically has to lose unless you want year 3 to be 12 issues of zombots going "uuugh" endlessly

 

 

16 minutes ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Idw has posted a Tangle Whisper#1 sneak peek. 

  Hide contents

Tangle you dork.

 

Tangle, you drip.

 

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Another one

Spoiler

Love how the pink wisp is copying Tangle.

 

[DabigRG]

33 minutes ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

but that's what's happening in the comics right now. Sonic is feeling guilty about the ones he couldnt protect like Charmy,, he's mostly trying to keep his cool because he knows Eggman wants to see him lose it and get angry or overly  depressed.

Or that he's trying to focus on saving what few he can while not turning gooey himself.

3 minutes ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

Another one

  Hide contents

Love how the pink wisp is copying Tangle.

 

I notice the Wisps seem to have a bioluminescent look to them.