Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[dbzfan7]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'd imagine Eggman took Shadow's immunity into account. From what I see at least, I'd imagine it's unlike a disease where it simply begins to destroy you internally, or what have you. First, the infection looks like it covers your body within a metallic shell, before altering your entire physical self, and then finally aims to convert your mind with Eggman's programming. 

My guess is that Shadow wasn't immune to it because it's been designed to affect organic things differently. Even trees, grass and the like were being converted as well, so it definitely aims down all organics, regardless of immunity to other diseases. My theory is that because the disease first works by literally changing the subject's physical state from organic to the strange invincible self-replicating metallic form the infected takes on, it throws immunity out of the window. In short, I think it affected Shadow by literally overwriting his immunity and changing his body. 

2 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

1. The Metal Virus is mega muck that turns organic matter into metal

2. The virus is mutating, which is why Eggman can no longer control the Zombots via commands anymore

Yeah I understand these and can come to my own conclusions as well, but I still like to have the story treat something like this as important enough to bring up as it's kind of a big deal. I think it's worth addressing still. 

[Marco9966]

10 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I was thinking about that too; look at his expression compared to the others

That's because its different artists. Tracy Yardley makes next issue.

Lawrence's zombots: drop dead expression, normal hands

Yardley's zombots: angry expression, spike hands

Which style do you guys prefer??

[Shadowlax]

Also I think the only reason shadow looks different is the same reason why the important folks look different when they get infected by the symbiote. It looks cool.

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

Yeah I understand these and can come to my own conclusions as well, but I still like to have the story treat something like this as important enough to bring up as it's kind of a big deal. I think it's worth addressing still. 

It's really not. He thought he was immune, turns out he wasn't, what more is there to say?

[Marco9966]

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

It's really not. He thought he was immune, turns out he wasn't, what more is there to say?

So drop the ultimate lifeform label

[Meta77]

16 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Oh my gasha, Shadow the Hedgehog has spikes now.

...wait a minute...

Sonic literally said "...if it happens, run it off..." The first time, so it shouldn't have even been a misunderstanding.

As someone said they bold certain things in comics that can easily be seen as run away. Sonic never outright says it reduces the virus . Did he mean it or zombots

[dbzfan7]

Just now, Diogenes said:

It's really not. He thought he was immune, turns out he wasn't, what more is there to say?

I mean I already brought it up, you disagree with me and believe it's not worth addressing, not sure what else there is to discuss on the matter. I mean...ok. It's basically a matter of opinion. I can't really make an argument haha. Ok then.

[DabigRG]

5 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I don't think he would get scrapped? Like he isn't around much in the first place, why would they just scrap him?

I think he means in the sense that he showed up in one game, was kinda interesting in it, but then never showed up or even got referenced again.

 

4 hours ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

Considering,how there seems to be no human character and G.U.N. doesn't seem to exist anymore,I'm starting to fear that Maria never existed in this canon

Eggman. 

ALso, wasn't she mentioned or at least alluded to?

3 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

That ^

I think that if Flynn bother talking about how there is a "Human World" in his podcast, we can consider that important human character "exists somewhere" (independantly of wether or not we will see the "Human World").

That reminds me, has anyone asked anything regarding Dr. NEGA in a while?

3 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

TBH, Maria happening and Shadow being more of a jerk isn't really incompatible to me. That's a huge case of "good is not nice" tropes, but that's not really incompatible, especially with things in Sonic X, where he tended to shut himself a lot from other and stuff. Maria can still be his drive to protect the world and too fight for the goodç, but what he suffered might make him less open to other, and way more unforgiving. (It would for me make even more sense about why he is way more radical than Sonic : because protecting the world is more "personnal" for him). And that's a tropes we see in a lot of fiction : people that are really harsh, edgy and kinda anti-heroïc, but have a "morality pet" (alive or not) that make them do the "right choice". (something that bother me sometimes, when it's used to excuse horrible stuff, like for Severus Snape where his relationship with Lily is often used as a way to say "looks he is not a bad guy" #AngryHPFanRambling.)

Maybe you should elaborate more about how this would invalidate the "Maria" part of his backstory, because I really don't see it, and I would be pretty interested to understand better.

While I admittedly skimmed through this because my eyes started to blur over for some reason, that kinda reminds me of Issue 6 making me think about the concept of Wild Cards.

 

3 hours ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Welp that design at the end looks pretty cool, Sonic is gonna have a hard time fighting that

Does it?

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Overconfident lone wolf character gets punished for acting like an overconfident lone wolf, this is bad writing somehow? I really don't get these complaints.

Oh, but don't you know? Shadow is "elegant, like poetry in motion" during combat.

2 hours ago, Redbluethunder5 said:

Because Shadow is supposed to have matured and developed:

Essentially the hurdle.

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

To be fair, it isn’t that out there. Shadow basically doesn’t age and is immune to most diseases, because he was created to help cure Maria’s disease (assuming that’s still canon to the games/comics). 

So on one hand, I can kind of get why he wouldn’t run and claim it’s because he’s the Ultimate Lifeform, because to him so far, he’s been immune to any infections or diseases, but on the other hand, like if they could see the metal already beginning to develop around him, it becomes obvious that Shadow should’ve knew that wasn’t going to fly and had to run to save himself, otherwise it makes him look a bit stupid.

i can’t really say one way or the other til I see the issue proper though.

Which could explain how he lasted so long.

 

2 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

Sega hasn't forgotten about Maria, so if Maria isn't a thing in the comics, it would specifically be a creative decision on Ian's part. I can't really see that.

Or because she's seldom relevant, much less when Shadow isn't?

[Diogenes]

4 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

So drop the ultimate lifeform label

No. He doesn't need immunity to everything resembling a disease to call himself the ULF.

[StaticMania]

3 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

As someone said they bold certain things in comics that can easily be seen as run away. Sonic never outright says it reduces the virus . Did he mean it or zombots

What exactly would Shadow be "running off" if he got infected by the Zombies if not the virus itself?

Would he be running off his emotions knowing he'd been defeated?

[Marco9966]

Just now, Diogenes said:

No. He doesn't need immunity to everything resembling a disease to call himself the ULF.

I like to think he misunderstood Sonic as "run away from them" instead of "run to kill the virus"

[bingboomer]

ok ok. so shadow was a bit of an arrogant jerk and should of helped sonic rather than just be pig headed. please make shadow better idw. 

[DK']

If he was so engaged to annihilate every zombot, why he didn't just warn Rouge & cie and chaos blast subsequently?

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, JosepHenry said:

A few pages ago I saw some people questioning if Ian hates Shadow...

.... Are you freaking kidding me? 

Did you guys forgot Sonic Universe? The thing that made Shadow 10 times more likable? Written by Ian Flynn?

I really really don't like to be that guy, but it's worth noting that the Preboot was able to fasttrack through much of the stuff people didn't really enjoy about game Shadow on top of giving him direction and nuance where Mr. Bollers and Penders had an awkward time due to how ironically out of context his character was during their tenure.

Also stuff like this

 

[Sonictrainer]

7 minutes ago, DK' said:

If he was so engaged to annihilate every zombot, why he didn't just warn Rouge & cie and chaos blast subsequently?

Probably because they're trying to protect a truck filled with uninfected people in a city that's still in the middle of being reconstructed?

[DK']

4 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

Probably because they're trying to protect a truck filled with uninfected people in a city that's still in the middle of being reconstructed?

That was perspicacious.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

 

I was worried that we're getting noob over Stanley, Skelly or Yardley, but those Zombots are way better than in last 2 issues. Yardely makes them look like imps or something, too lively, too mischievous. Lawrance made dumb but unstoppable threat. And in #18 there maybe 4 zombie per panel. Here were drowning in buggers.at Two World thing.

Okay, yeah, they were at least not bad.

Maybe further can take cues from this while getting the other characters up to snuff.

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Rouge... actually does very little, poor girl.

To be fair, there's not too much she can do here more than ever.

 

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

No! Shadow bear hugs the Idiot Ball like his life depends on it!

For a second there, I almost thought you were being literal.

 

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

IBut what really annoys me is that IDW Shadow is absolute screwing up idiot ALL THE TIME.
Isuse 6 he tries to kill Tinker/fails to kill Tinker (pick which you think was a crime), issue 10 he powered up Metal, now this. I get that Flynn doesn't want to make Shadow invincible Mary Sue, but he tips the scale too much in other direction. It's just like early Archie when Shadow was punching bag for Scourge/Lara-Su/Adam/Enerjack/SuperScourge. Any of those defeats would been fine, in a row got a little grading.

PLEEEEASE Flynn, let Shadow do one badass thing, that won't be instantly undone by his ego.

 

Eh. Wait, Lara-Su?

And to be fair with Scourge, it really wasn't a defeat--in fact, Shadow was hot on his ass immediately afterwards and basically got lucky that Finitevus wanted to use him. The whole point of that sequence was to show that just because Scourge got a fair boost doesn't mean he's ready to tangle with the best just yet.

2 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

See, I can take Issue 6, since it was an interesting ideological conflict between Sonic and Shadow. 

This is neither of those things, so it gets no pass.

Funny, I see it the other way, but that's neither here nor there. Really.

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

As starved as I am for good Shadow content he's not our focus this arc so they just used him to escalate the wider conflict. 

That's basically what he is in general..

2 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

 And why is everyone slack-jawed all of a sudden.

Yeah, that's a good question.

[Marco9966]

To those who disagree about Shadow's bad writing watch this video now!

https://youtu.be/KcN5r9LlFW4?list=PLECYq24__PXv_VpV0rRfE1Jx6sL_pfEkv

 

Best part begins at 6:00

Shadow is reduced to an edgy meme, even in the comic.

Also if you watch the video entirely, what was said about Deadly Six could be said the same for Starltine! We dont know what drives him, what his motivations are! All we know is he's evil

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Tangled Jack said:

 

Besides, Flynn already did this all the time in Archie, in "Total Eclipse", remember how Shadow and Knuckles were dicks to each other for no reason? I do.

 

The difference is that they were at odds there because of not only two different viewpoints, but two different ideas of how to handle the Eclipse situation. 

In IDW and maybe even some recent games, Shadow is aggressive and in this case arrogant because that's what antiheroes in general do, including him sometimes. Except it doesn't feel all that appropriate. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

6 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

To those who disagree about Shadow's bad writing watch this video now!

https://youtu.be/KcN5r9LlFW4?list=PLECYq24__PXv_VpV0rRfE1Jx6sL_pfEkv

Yeah, don't.

This is good video and it has good points (even if it is 4 years old), but it's irrelevant to current discussion. Flynn writes differently then Sega.

Quote

Eh. Wait, Lara-Su?

And to be fair with Scourge, it really wasn't a defeat--in fact, Shadow was hot on his ass immediately afterwards and basically got lucky that Finitevus wanted to use him. The whole point of that sequence was to show that just because Scourge got a fair boost doesn't mean he's ready to tangle with the best just yet.

King Shadow in XYL.
And Scourge beat Shadow and Sonic at once, so I'm not buying your argument. But even if I did, you're missing the point of frequency. Maybe Scourge got lucky. Maybe XYL doesn't count. Maybe Enerjack beat everyone. You can excuse every single defeat, it doesn't chance that all Shadow did was losing fight, regardless how justified it was.

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

You're ignoring that Shadow is pissed at Sonic and doesn't want to listen to anything he has to say because he sees Sonic as the one responsible for all this. Shadow's too caught up in his own bullshit to admit that he's wrong, that he's vulnerable, that he can't deal with this by himself.

How is this not basically what actually happened? And how would we not just get people saying he's stupid for thinking his ULF-ness would protect him when he's already infected?

On subtleties. I was fine that Shadow fought zombots. And that he got careless. And that he got infected. And this is the moment he should realize he made mistake and try to act on it. If he had still believed he can win or had good reason to stay, comic failed at getting it across.

Have you read  original Civil War comic? Or at least Captain's iconic speech about 'no, you move'? In the Civil War movie it's the same speech, but given by different person, thus completely changing it's meaning. So if Shadow was shown front different angle (giving bigger focus on his reasoning) I might have interpret the same actions in different, more positive way.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Sonictrainer said:

 

...also, are we not going to talk about Shadow driving the Mad Convoy from City Escape?

Oh shoot, I didn't even think about that.

 

2 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I bet there will be a Sonic vs Shadow every arc.

Gaia, crush me now

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Does it show Shadow transform? I'm curious what the design is when we can get a proper clearer look at it.

It's a washed in Super Shadow with Zavok's random spike bracelets. 

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

  Hide contents

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that the rest of the zombots all have drooping dead like expressions, but Shadow (And the chao iirc) look properly vindictive and ready to lunge at anyone?

 

Could be the ♪Cha-os in everyone♩

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

 

Sonic literally said "...if it happens, run it off..." The first time, so it shouldn't have even been a misunderstanding.

Oh goodness, I just realized what that is.

.

2 hours ago, dbzfan7 said:

A mostly enjoyable issue...til Shadow showed up and made it dumb. I have no problems with him fighting off the zombots. He was made to be immune to disease. So it makes sense he'd fight them knowing that. But the minute it was actually effecting him...then Shadow was gone and the PRINCE OF ALL LIFEFORMS!!!! suddenly possessed him and he decided to be dumb. Yeah it seemed to be a hamfisted way of getting Sonic vs Shadow again.

Curious as to how exactly the infection worked on him anyways considering his typical immunity, but I'm willing to give the story a chance to explain that in time. It'll bug me if it's never addressed though as it's kinda part of why he was made in the first place.

Not interested in a Shadow discussion for the umpteenth time so if ya disagree as there are some who do, cool but I really have no interest debating on Shadow when it's already a fire starting conversation as is...

I have to wonder if he was resisting it at first, considering the fight scenes.

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

It's weird that they have those expressions at all considering...the animals at the beginning were feral and stuff.

Could just be the virus mutating.

...Even though this presumably came from Eggman himself.

2 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

That's because its different artists. Tracy Yardley makes next issue.

Lawrence's zombots: drop dead expression, normal hands

Yardley's zombots: angry expression, spike hands

Which style do you guys prefer??

This was a decent thematically appropriate interpretation I guess, but the original versions are better at being not only distinct visually, but fit with the virus essentially being rabies.

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Also I think the only reason shadow looks different is the same reason why the important folks look different when they get infected by the symbiote. It looks cool.

Mm...you're not wrong.

2 hours ago, Meta77 said:

As someone said they bold certain things in comics that can easily be seen as run away. Sonic never outright says it reduces the virus . Did he mean it or zombots

Both. Run so the virus burns off you and run from the zombots so they can't accelerate the process, which is essentially what's happened to the major characters thus far.

 

1 hour ago, DK' said:

If he was so engaged to annihilate every zombot, why he didn't just warn Rouge & cie and chaos blast subsequently?

I was thinking the same thing when he showed up.

 

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

To those who disagree about Shadow's bad writing watch this video now!

https://youtu.be/KcN5r9LlFW4?list=PLECYq24__PXv_VpV0rRfE1Jx6sL_pfEkv

 

Best part begins at 6:00

Shadow is reduced to an edgy meme, even in the comic.

Also if you watch the video entirely, what was said about Deadly Six could be said the same for Starltine! We dont know what drives him, what his motivations are! All we know is he's evil

I think I remember watching that one? Except not really?

Anyway, I guess the difference is that Starline thus far is not only in a comic as opposed to a game, but is explicitly there to enable/support Eggman and develop through being able to work as an assistant. 

[DabigRG]

Delete

[QuantumEdge]

Read the issue and yeah, the twist is a little forced.  It's not egregious or anything, just lacking in natural flow.  Good news is Omega's an excellent addition as always, Shadow drives a freaking semi and the art's pretty good (if a little off briefly).  Sadly, Shadow himself doesn't really interest me.  He's just too arrogant and unlikeable.  It's an issue I've had since the Archie reboot and it only makes me long for the days when, for once, he was humble enough to be as close a friend to Sonic as you could realistically imagine him to be.  

[DabigRG]

38 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

 

King Shadow in XYL.
And Scourge beat Shadow and Sonic at once, so I'm not buying your argument. But even if I did, you're missing the point of frequency. Maybe Scourge got lucky. Maybe XYL doesn't count. Maybe Enerjack beat everyone. You can excuse every single defeat, it doesn't chance that all Shadow did was losing fight, regardless how justified it was.

 

Ah, I see. Oh well.

I feel it's bigger issue here either way.

6 minutes ago, QuantumEdge said:

  Sadly, Shadow himself doesn't really interest me. 

Yeah, admittedly I'm sorta there as well.

[Shadowlax]

14 minutes ago, QuantumEdge said:

Read the issue and yeah, the twist is a little forced.  It's not egregious or anything, just lacking in natural flow.  Good news is Omega's an excellent addition as always, Shadow drives a freaking semi and the art's pretty good (if a little off briefly).  Sadly, Shadow himself doesn't really interest me.  He's just too arrogant and unlikeable.  It's an issue I've had since the Archie reboot and it only makes me long for the days when, for once, he was humble enough to be as close a friend to Sonic as you could realistically imagine him to be.  

Huh ? You feel that way, I think archie reboot shadow is humble. He's just an ass. He wasn't as " friendly" as the previous version, but personally I didn't feel like he needed to be. It was a nice balance, IMO anyway.