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IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread


Dejimon11

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I hope we get a confirmation on whether it happened or not soon because it has way too much traction for what could easily be a fake story. 

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He's talked about the Zombot thing in depth on his podcast. It's a very interesting story and one that he makes clear would have been 100% different if done in the original books. Though, I feel that's rather obvious.

 

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Oooh. I’m glad Ian hasn’t completely given up on hoping to continue Archie somebody.

I know it’ll never happen, but a man can dream.

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I'm glad for the work Ian is doing with the cast, anyway, I'm getting tons of negative comments for my reddit post on the games writing, but IDW does it best IMO, with everyone

Sonic thinks and reflects upon his actions, Tails is kind and brave again, while still being a tech guy, Knuckles is a punch first think later and lovable stubborn, Amy is both in love with Sonic and an independent person, Eggman is deliciously wicked and ruthless, Shadow is edgy obviously, he makes mistakes and he's still badass (issue 10), Neo Metal Sonic was a really entertaining villain, Blaze works well as usual as an introspective person, Vector is a caring and fair leader of his band, Espio and Charmy are respectively realist and brave, Rouge is funny and flirty as she always is, Omega is his destructive self of course, every entertaining, Silver... What an adorable awkward dork, Tangle is full of life and wants out of her boring routine, Whisper is a real mystery. I really like everybody. Just because Shadow made one mistake I wouldn't say the writing is bad. Nor other little things, which the mandates are likely behind too.

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I also think it's interesting that Zavok was originally planned for the Archie version of the Metal Virus saga. Which I guess means Ian officially was going to skip Lost World and just act as though it happened in the build up to #300.

Probably for the best since the reboot was an Adaptation for its whole run.

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I also doubt Zavok is gonna show up here. For obviously reasons (he basically would have spoiled it). Maybe next arc.

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3 hours ago, SBR2 said:

To try and get off the topic of Shadow Ian tweeted out his original plan for the Metal Virus in Archie. https://mobile.twitter.com/IanFlynnBKC/status/1165702486382043138

Just goes to show you not to toss ideas. You can always use them somewhere. 

I'm kinda having a chortle here. 

On one hand, that planning guide for what we would see in the comic is obviously a bit messy.  On the other, that sort of shorthand would immediately register with the genius who made it and I can't say I've never done something o the sort. 

So I went ahead & did some brushing up for context. By filling in the blanks, I think the trajectory was something like this:

 

Quote

 

SU 87-90 Knuckles & Amy in Shattered

STH 284-287 Panic in the Sky/End of Shattered World Crisis

SU 91-94 The Chaotix in Case of the Pirate Princess

STH 288-291 Genesis of a Hero/Classic Quadrilogy Adaptation

SU 95-98 Freedom Fighters

STH 292-295 Branching Paths, Sonic-Man Heroes, SegaSonic Arcade Adaptation, and ???

SU 99-102 (Probably something special)

STH 296-299 (Lead in to Metal Virus)

SU 103-106 (Probably Team Rose fixing Nicole)

STH 300-304 Sonic Vs Maw plus Brain Trust Backup Arc

SU 107-110 Blaze & Bunnie vs Null Mind

305-306  Patient Zero On the Move

SU 111-114 Antoine Search for Swords

Guess this lends credence to his implication that the IDW Metal Virus was somehow related to Null Mind

EDIT: That's a lot of Walrus.

 

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22 hours ago, Ellipsis-Ultima said:

The RI cover of issue 21

spacer.png

Spoiler

I assume this means Tails is in the process of manufacturing a cure with Sonic's assistance in a race against time.

Also, is it weird that I immediately thought about TSR here?

16 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Shadow is a cool black cat.

Time to make him the opposite of that.

...Wut.

15 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Ian should avoid game chatacters more and create more comic chatacters as he has more freedom as to how to write them

Holy shit, someone said this. x.x 

10 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Well yea, they're dictating his character to be this way because they honestly believe this is who he's supposed to be due to all of the memes surrounding him.

 

 

9 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

 

Even though Sega themselves have done nothing but embrace the memes that haters use against this series for the better part of a decade.  :V

Essentially.

10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Being caught off guard by Charmy could be...

That was suppose to be emotional?

...could be the reason. After all Charmy thinks Shadow is so cooool.

With musical notes!

9 hours ago, Tangled Jack said:

SEGA's leaked bío of how the characters must act today:

Sonic - fast and superficial, a jerk, doesn't think, loves chili dogs.

Tails - A smartass who's weak and emotional, a jerk sometimes (bipolar???)

Knuckles - Random serious leader at times, angry and possessive guardian clown when they remember it. Also, Sonic's friendly rival.

Amy - A hacker, someone who gives orders and keeps stuff organized, with hidden feelings for Sonic. A.k.a. the opposite of fangirl.

Dr. Eggman - A buffoon who is still smart but not threatening, still manages to be the final boss every time.

Metal Sonic - *noises*

Shadow - A caricature of Vegeta, fights for his "pride".

Silver - A generic hero that has no use.

Vector - Whatever we want him to be. Obsessed with money and a detective so that's the reason he's always involved.

Blaze - Spin-off only.

Rouge - Shadow's satellite and plot device.

Omega - Destroy. Destroy. Destroy

Orbot / Cubot - comic relief for 2 scenes

Big - Look at how badass he is.

Omochao -  Look at me, I'm an annoying tutorial guy!

Zavok - Eggman's minion and villain fodder

Infinite: WEAK

Cream, Sticks, Espio, Charmy, Jet, Wave, Zazz, and many more: Who is that???

Overall I'd say the comic is doing a great job despite  these crap rules.

I love how it took seeing "a jerk" to clue me in that you're half-BSin.

 

9 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

Also, if anyone cares that much about the Ian story you can just ask the guy for clarification. He's on twitter and he does a podcast where at the end of it he does a Q and A. He answered a question about the portrayal of Amy, I don't see why he wouldn't answer one about Shadow.

There's no guaruntee that you'll definitely get noticed but if it puts a stop to the conspiracy theory stuff I'm all for someone making an actual attempt to seek out an answer.

 

I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out.

8 hours ago, Wraith said:

I don't get why they'd deliberately simplify him like that. I have no idea how that would positively affect their brand so I just chalked it up to careless writing.

Because they've been simplifying everything else and have little to help him work anyway.

7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

If is important. This is IF this is true. while I don't think anyone has any qualms with thinking sega doesn't get something , especially characterization. It could all be bullshit, like how shadows written there kind of lines up with points during shadow's archie pre-reboot days before he was dictated. This could have just been a create screw up from ian doesn't get the pop he wanted and the character changes in the near future.

Again this lines up with ians treatment of shadow. This is the guy who during worlds unite ( and yes I know editorial issues ) but during that, instead of choosing any other character or set of characters to die, team dark and shadow did. Even though shadow's capcom equivalent was walking around in zero. He deemed shadow not worthy of being around and he wasn't around yes the explaination was " OH hey we needed to choose someone everyone would know wouldn't die" but its a comic book for children. Everyone knows no one is going to seriously die during a crossoever besides crossoever specific characters. homie could have chosen any number of archie exclusive characters but he chose shadow.

He could not just care for shadow, got to write a story he wanted to and was like " shadow be damned " and problably given the reception to this, there will be less inclined to do so inthe future.

That said if it is real , I have confidence in Ian. He's worked around mandates before, infact the mandate post reboot shadow is IMO the best interpretation of that character...period. This may have caught him off gauard, might might by why the writing seems uh...weird in the last issue and seemingly upcoming in this next issue.  But I genuinely believe with enough time and prep Ian can get something workable out of this mandate

 

I think that's what he might have been going for if this interaction between ian flynn and this guys friend happened.

 

 

Uh, you are aware that much of Shadow's earlier Archie appearances were written by Mr. Bollers and for a brief while Penders, who both apparently had relatively little clue in how to use him at the time(though the former did seem to factor Heroes in for the potential future)?

7 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

My boy Vector's been getting treated really well lately. It might just be that because he's not as popular, there's little worry or pressure put on how he should or shouldn't be portrayed which ironically is keeping him more consistent. 

That's just a theory though. They might actually be paying attention and have just decided that this is the way to portray them for now. It wouldn't surprise me. 

 

Probably the sitch.

It could also be because, like Eggman and maybe Knuckles, Vector is definitely one of the more inherently animated and (for lack of a better word)faceted characters.

6 hours ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

At this point Sega should just give Modern Sonic to a Modern Fan like they did with Classic Sonic

Huh. Deja vu.

5 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

This is ANYTHING but a confirmation. Any people can go on the internet and know that he actually is at the convention, especially as he communicate about that. Anybody can create a "leak" an "inside information" or a stuff like that. That kind of things happens all the time on the internet. As long as Flynn isn't *directly* the one saying that, it is shady and still uncle-at-nintendo level. End of line. Because it create some kind of rumor-y stuff were people don't know what they can believe or not, and that's REALLY a damaging things to do.

There have been a lot of this kind of crap in many fandom, and it never went well.

 

( and this one could be really more damaging to Ian Flynn than not, as if SEGA would start to believe that Flynn say wrong stuff behind their back to stirr a controversy from himself… I think that the people at SEGA that could see that know enough about fandom bs to not believe that kind of things without any proof, but we can never know. )

Ooh, good point.

 

4 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

That reddit post is picking up steam on othersites. Folks are uh.. not pleased

 

4 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

I hope we get a confirmation on whether it happened or not soon because it has way too much traction for what could easily be a fake story. 

Oh dear.

Was this on reddit to begin with?

3 hours ago, Ernest the Panda said:

Oooh. I’m glad Ian hasn’t completely given up on hoping to continue Archie somebody.

I know it’ll never happen, but a man can dream.

Well he's always been consistent about holding details off for Lost Hedgehog Tales, which got halted numerous times by other forces. He's also occasionally brought up the potential to reuse certain things.

Speaking of which, the real reason he posted that was precisely because he got the Metal Virus greenlight and published for IDW, leaving little reason for him to withhold that much.

2 hours ago, SBR2 said:

I also think it's interesting that Zavok was originally planned for the Archie version of the Metal Virus saga. Which I guess means Ian officially was going to skip Lost World and just act as though it happened in the build up to #300.

Probably for the best since the reboot was an Adaptation for its whole run.

Yeah, I noticed that. What an odd place to put him.

The bracket(?; this thing >) next to it is similar to the one on 303 but bigger, which makes me wonder if it's supposed to indicate something special or if he'd indeed be entering the conflict at that point.

As for the Lost World adaptation, I think(I'm not looking right this second) there was a 4 issue gap that I had no clue about, so it either might've gone there(unlikely) or it might have indeed been cancelled/postponed because the Shattered World Crisis went on longer than he intended.

2 hours ago, Ernest the Panda said:

Can somebody do a proper type-up of that brainstorm sheet? I can’t read most of the handwriting.

I still have it open in another tab, so I might try to do it for when I posted this in the Archie thread.

EDIT: It's done.

2 hours ago, Tangled Jack said:

I also doubt Zavok is gonna show up here. For obviously reasons (he basically would have spoiled it). Maybe next arc.

See my second paragraph to SBR2.

Also, spoiled it as in...?

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6 minutes ago, Ernest the Panda said:

@DabigRG as in if Zavok was still meant to be involved in the IDW version of the arc down the road then Ian just spoiled that fact.

Oh okay. That makes sense.

 I just assumed.

...Oh man, I actually hope not.

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2 hours ago, DabigRG said:
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I assume this means Tails is in the process of manufacturing a cure with Sonic's assistance in a race against time.

Uh, you are aware that much of Shadow's earlier Archie appearances were written by Mr. Bollers and for a brief while Penders, who both apparently had relatively little clue in how to use him at the time(though the former did seem to factor Heroes in for the potential future)?

I'd like to add on to this by saying that the part about Ian choosing Team Dark to kill off in the crossover event is in no way indicative of any potential bias or hatred for the characters. Saying "he could have picked someone else" isn't a rebuttal to anything. If you're going by the logic that he might have potential hatred for Shadow because he chose Team Dark to kill off then, if he killed someone else off, the argument would just shift to "Well he must hate the OTHER characters he killed off instead" and leave it at a no-win situation. It's far more fair to just go by the explanation he actually fucking gave rather than allow the idea of some sort of stealth vendetta against Shadow to permeate.

I may be jumping to  defend this man but that's because I've literally heard him talk about the things being brought up here, with an extreme amount of enthusiasm and humbleness within his own tone of voice. I listen to the guy's podcast and I know enough about the way he carries himself and the way he approaches the book to know that any suggestion that he was playing evil mastermind with Team Dark's fate is ridiculous. 

I'll still criticize the book when it does something I feel doesn't line up right but Ian's just writing what he thinks will work to the best of his ability. He definitely wants to do what he can to please everyone despite also knowing that you won't realistically be able to. I feel he deserves at least that amount of respect. 

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1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'd like to add on to this by saying that the part about Ian choosing Team Dark to kill off in the crossover event is in no way indicative of any potential bias or hatred for the characters. Saying "he could have picked someone else" isn't a rebuttal to anything. If you're going by the logic that he might have potential hatred for Shadow because he chose Team Dark to kill off then, if he killed someone else off, the argument would just shift to "Well he must hate the OTHER characters he killed off instead" and leave it at a no-win situation. It's far more fair to just go by the explanation he actually fucking gave rather than allow the idea of some sort of stealth vendetta against Shadow to permeate.

I may be jumping to  defend this man but that's because I've literally heard him talk about the things being brought up here, with an extreme amount of enthusiasm and humbleness within his own tone of voice. I listen to the guy's podcast and I know enough about the way he carries himself and the way he approaches the book to know that any suggestion that he was playing evil mastermind with Team Dark's fate is ridiculous. 

I'll still criticize the book when it does something I feel doesn't line up right but Ian's just writing what he thinks will work to the best of his ability. He definitely wants to do what he can to please everyone despite also knowing that you won't realistically be able to. I feel he deserves at least that amount of respect. 

You know what, I honestly forgot he was focusing/lumping on World's Unite specifically. 😅

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2 hours ago, DabigRG said:
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I assume this means Tails is in the process of manufacturing a cure with Sonic's assistance in a race against time.

 

Uh, you are aware that much of Shadow's earlier Archie appearances were written by Mr. Bollers and for a brief while Penders, who both apparently had relatively little clue in how to use him at the time(though the former did seem to factor Heroes in for the potential future)?

 

I'm aware and we can have a whole ass conversation about penders and bollers. But that doesn't explain worlds unite, it also doesn't explain weird narrative descions made with shadow pre and post reboot. But there's one thing I want to say in particular that I don't think some of ya'll get

54 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 I feel he deserves at least that amount of respect. 

So lets talk about this, I think you are imagining me. talking about ian flynn with devil horns literally stabbing shadow to death. Its not that elaborate and its the charitable read. I have read comics for a while, sometimes the person writing doesn't care for the character you like no matter how popular he is and doesn't care to write them and gets ways to write them out of the story if they have to make choices on what to focus on narratively. Simply put, due to the dumpster fire that was archie at that moment and the things his editor was saying to him, he had to make a choice and he choice to get rid of some characters people were asking about so he could focus on the characters he wanted to right. Despite my disdain of the decision, it is not inherently good or bad it is just a thing.

What you suggest is he just decided at random, and I don't believe that. Not in the since that ian flynn is a secret vendetta against shadow as you say it, more so I think Ian flynn is intelligent and a good writer. " Well I chose the character people would believe least to die" doesn't make sense, and Ian flynn is not obligated and probably not in his benefit to tell us all of the thought process that went through that. This to be very blunt is if you over saw a DC Marvel Crossoever event and decided to kill if batman so he couldn't meet wolverine, but the wonder twins were there. No he saw the narrative potential in these two dudes who represent generation changes in their respective brand interacting in some way, heck its on the poster.  He was just put in a bad decision and made a choice that allowed him to tell what he thought was the parts of the story important to him .

And this isn't the first time he's done this with shadow. Shadow's a popular guy, but he's almost never in Ian flynn's large narrative plans. So flynn would devise ways to just get shadow out of the way, so he could focus on the stuff he wanted to focus on which never really involved shadow. To the degree in which in the reboot they gave shadow his own very specific bad guy so they could just shadow and team dark away from the main narrative for a reason more intricate than they are " protecting the president "

So again while everyone in this thread has no issue believing Sonic Team made a big oopsie, I can also believe a scenario where flynn had a zombie story. Couldn't figure out how to get a zombie shadow with out doing this, and just did it so he could get his zombie shadow and didn't care so he could write his story. Because there is histor you can point to of flynn writing shadow specifically trying to get him out of the way. I don't think that acknowledging that is some conspiracy theory, its just a thing that happens with media. Sometimes the person making the thing doesn't like the character you like too much and are less charitable to them. Its just a thing.

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1 minute ago, Shadowlax said:

I'm aware and we can have a whole ass conversation about penders and bollers. But that doesn't explain worlds unite, it also doesn't explain weird narrative descions made with shadow pre and post reboot. But there's one thing I want to say in particular that I don't think some of ya'll get

 

...Get what?(Oh shit, he got sniped, didn't he? :lol: )

What was particularly weird preboot 160-247?

2 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

So lets talk about this, I think you are imagining me. talking about ian flynn with devil horns literally stabbing shadow to death.

I swear I read that as essentially "me with devil horns iterally stabbing Shadow [while] talking to ian flynn."

Damn, my eyes play me sometime.

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56 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

What you suggest is he just decided at random, and I don't believe that. Not in the since that ian flynn is a secret vendetta against shadow as you say it, more so I think Ian flynn is intelligent and a good writer. " Well I chose the character people would believe least to die" doesn't make sense, and Ian flynn is not obligated and probably not in his benefit to tell us all of the thought process that went through that. This to be very blunt is if you over saw a DC Marvel Crossoever event and decided to kill if batman so he couldn't meet wolverine, but the wonder twins were there. No he saw the narrative potential in these two dudes who represent generation changes in their respective brand interacting in some way, heck its on the poster.  He was just put in a bad decision and made a choice that allowed him to tell what he thought was the parts of the story important to him .

 


Oh.

Honestly--and this is partly me talking if I was in his shoes--, I think that was him being [overly?]pragmatic while using Shadow.

As you know, Shadow's tenure in Archie is one of the bigger examples of the comic not really knowing how to properly use a character either to due to lack of concrete material from SEGA and/or due to too many variables to readjust to accommodate them. (See Sub bullet points for recap) After Mr. Flynn basically hit a fastforward button to admittedly half-BS his way through getting Shadow where he needs to be within 40 issues, there was a new level of nebulousness that had the benefit of what had happened in-between those loose game adaptations to use and give Shadow his own stories on par with Sonic & Knuckles.

  • First he was only alluded to(?) around 98 because the Adventure 1 adaptation already fucked with the writer's resources & apparently their memories and they most likely didn't wanna go through that again. Also, they literally couldn't reasonably adapt the game considering the already messed up stories of the time were being wrapped up, Knuckles was green, and Tails was an Ixis clone.
  • 124 or 125 had him thrown in by the Bem in time for the Xorda seemingly killing off Sonic for a yearlong timeskip. This was clearly because Heroes brought him back from the dead and Mr. Bollers, despite his efforts to bring in more from the games, clearly had little clue on what he was supposed to do with him beyond--and stop me if this sounds familiar--just being an antihero.
  • The 140-159 era, under Mr. Penders, still had him doing confusing antihero stuff from I what I recall. This included fighting Metal Sonic, having their unconscious bodies kidnapped by Mecha, and riding an underground trolley to fight Sonic him under ground for some reason. There was also him becoming protective of Hope, trying to murder Locke for some reason, help Sonic fight an army of Neo Metal Sonics, and have Knuckles recognize his connection to the Chaos Force, which was [mostly] better. Did I forget anything?
  • The 160-200 era, with Mr. Flynn's long awaited debut, saw him involved in the cleanup. This includes showing up to Sonic's birthday to thank and help him fend off the attackers, turn on Eggman to get answers about his past, get closure with NICOLE's help, and join up with GUN.
  • I think you or SkulkBane brought up how he tended to occasionally show up in the main book to help show how powerful the villain of the week is one time? ...Well, I think it's this is damned if you do, damned if you don't situation tbh. To crib your speaking patterns for a second, it's possible this was a matter of people potentially going "Hey, why didn't they call Shadow to wipe this guy out in one hit?" and him going "Shadow tried, but ADAM-Tommy/Knuxerjak/SuperScourge is too much of craftyboi/diety/Superform for that to work." It's unfortunate, but I can't say it really affected that much from memory. 
  • Shadow and to an extent Blaze are the two most broken and [near] infallible of the recurring cast; it can be difficult to write stories that involve characters like Bean the Dynamite and/or need to last a fair amount of time with them. This, alongside their popularity and (the last bullet), gave motivation to reasonably limit their involvement in bigger events and "crossover" stories.
  • And finally, given this is Shadow we're talking about, he had a whole supporting cast and other backstory elements that were being built up in the games that provides material for stories about him. So it honestly made sense to have those stories take place in their own little corners unless a crucial part of a bigger event. 
     

Which brings us to World's Unite. It had it's moments(ex.Gemerl), but it primarily turned out to be a mistake on multiple accounts. A lot of editorial pushing(it happening when it did, Xander Payne needing to be toned down), licensing mandates(what characters he used), fan appeal(Freedom Fighters & Light Robot Masters, Wily seeing Zero), and maybe even outsourcing(those other artists and writers) made that sequel crossover a clear mess of epic proportions. As impressive as it was, it really says something that the second and third parts of it had a entire customary page dedicated to showing off every single character involved--which was something like 50 of em.

So when the editor also said "Hey, the stakes aren't high enough--you need to kill off a major character or two," he just rolled his eyes and probably went, "okay, who would a decent person that I can use for that blatant shock value while not getting too in the way? Hm...I guess Mayor Dorado(?), Team Dark, the President, Commander Tower, and his daughter/niece are in a city, so maybe they can be there when Sigma's devices merge the worlds. Will that work? Okay, now to plot out this epic final fight with Super Sonic, Super Adaptor Megaman, and Super X Armor..."

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2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

So lets talk about this, I think you are imagining me. talking about ian flynn with devil horns literally stabbing shadow to death. Its not that elaborate and its the charitable read. I have read comics for a while, sometimes the person writing doesn't care for the character you like no matter how popular he is and doesn't care to write them and gets ways to write them out of the story if they have to make choices on what to focus on narratively. Simply put, due to the dumpster fire that was archie at that moment and the things his editor was saying to him, he had to make a choice and he choice to get rid of some characters people were asking about so he could focus on the characters he wanted to right. Despite my disdain of the decision, it is not inherently good or bad it is just a thing.

What you suggest is he just decided at random, and I don't believe that. Not in the since that ian flynn is a secret vendetta against shadow as you say it, more so I think Ian flynn is intelligent and a good writer. " Well I chose the character people would believe least to die" doesn't make sense, and Ian flynn is not obligated and probably not in his benefit to tell us all of the thought process that went through that.

Yeah, and I'm saying you're being ridiculous to suggest that this is the case for Shadow and at all related to why he killed off Team Dark in that crossover. He gave a reasoning, in far more detail then you're giving credit for by the way, and you're choosing to ignore it and dismiss it in favor of something that makes more sense to you. It's baseless and it's silly.

World's Unite had a lot of things done for the sake of compensation. Your assertion that he absolutely got to focus on just who he wanted to write doesn't even have basis in truth because I know for a fact that he's had to make a ton of compromises based on just what would flow better or stand alone as an advertisement for the book.  The Freedom Fighters weren't in the first crossover because of that. He put the Freedom Fighters in World's Unite because there were people wondering and asking why they weren't in the first crossover and he tried his best to appease that crowd with World's Unite. But, of course, hindsight is 20-20. Too many characters were in that story and he straight up said that if he could do it again he'd remove the Freedom Fighters and the Maverick hunters to try and balance things out. 

I never said he decided it at random. Clearly some thought was put into what was done. I know that because I've actually done due diligence and listened to the man actually talk about this more than once. His thought process there was definitely a little more than what you're putting in quotations but even if it wasn't, you're choosing not to believe it based on nothing.

He may not be obligated to talk about his thought process but that hasn't stopped him. He does it routinely and it's really not hard to find. 

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

And this isn't the first time he's done this with shadow. Shadow's a popular guy, but he's almost never in Ian flynn's large narrative plans. So flynn would devise ways to just get shadow out of the way, so he could focus on the stuff he wanted to focus on which never really involved shadow. To the degree in which in the reboot they gave shadow his own very specific bad guy so they could just shadow and team dark away from the main narrative for a reason more intricate than they are " protecting the president "

So again while everyone in this thread has no issue believing Sonic Team made a big oopsie, I can also believe a scenario where flynn had a zombie story. Couldn't figure out how to get a zombie shadow with out doing this, and just did it so he could get his zombie shadow and didn't care so he could write his story. Because there is histor you can point to of flynn writing shadow specifically trying to get him out of the way. I don't think that acknowledging that is some conspiracy theory, its just a thing that happens with media. Sometimes the person making the thing doesn't like the character you like too much and are less charitable to them. Its just a thing.

You're making shit up and you have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm getting kind of heated right now because, again, I just recently listened to him talking about Eclipse and Shadow Fall and the whole deal with Shadow in one of the older podcasts. The amount of enthusiasm and the heavy emphasis he put into how much hard work went into taking the concepts from Shadow's game and creating Eclipse is something that falls into direct contrast with your hand-waving of it here. This is dumb and I kind of find it intensely insulting and gross. 

Dislike the stories and the direction he took all you want but what you're doing here is basically claiming to know what the guy's intention was without properly looking into the available avenues that actually give you an actual, better understanding of what that may be.

I'm not going to accept or have any respect for your dreaming up evidence to support this nonsensical argument you're trying to make. 

This IS conspiracy theory nonsense. 

 

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19 minutes ago, DabigRG said:


Oh.

Honestly--and this is partly me talking if I was in his shoes--, I think that was him being [overly?]pragmatic while using Shadow.

As you know, Shadow's tenure in Archie is one of the bigger examples of the comic not really knowing how to properly use a character either to due to lack of concrete material from SEGA and/or due to too many variables to readjust to accommodate them. (See Sub bullet points for recap) After Mr. Flynn basically hit a fastforward button to admittedly half-BS his way through getting Shadow where he needs to be within 40 issues, there was a new level of nebulousness that had the benefit of what had happened in-between those loose game adaptations to use and give Shadow his own stories on par with Sonic & Knuckles.

  • First he was only alluded to(?) around 98 because the Adventure 1 adaptation already fucked with the writer's resources & apparently their memories and they most likely didn't wanna go through that again. Also, they literally couldn't reasonably adapt the game considering the already messed up stories of the time were being wrapped up, Knuckles was green, and Tails was an Ixis clone.
  • 124 or 125 had him thrown in by the Bem in time for the Xorda seemingly killing off Sonic for a yearlong timeskip. This was clearly because Heroes brought him back from the dead and Mr. Bollers, despite his efforts to bring in more from the games, clearly had little clue on what he was supposed to do with him beyond--and stop me if this sounds familiar--just being an antihero.
  • The 140-159 era, under Mr. Penders, still had him doing confusing antihero stuff from I what I recall. This included fighting Metal Sonic, having their unconscious bodies kidnapped by Mecha, and riding an underground trolley to fight Sonic him under ground for some reason. There was also him becoming protective of Hope, trying to murder Locke for some reason, help Sonic fight an army of Neo Metal Sonics, and have Knuckles recognize his connection to the Chaos Force, which was [mostly] better. Did I forget anything?
  • The 160-200 era, with Mr. Flynn's long awaited debut, saw him involved in the cleanup. This includes showing up to Sonic's birthday to thank and help him fend off the attackers, turn on Eggman to get answers about his past, get closure with NICOLE's help, and join up with GUN.
  • I think you or SkulkBane brought up how he tended to occasionally show up in the main book to help show how powerful the villain of the week is one time? ...Well, I think it's this is damned if you do, damned if you don't situation tbh. To crib your speaking patterns for a second, it's possible this was a matter of people potentially going "Hey, why didn't they call Shadow to wipe this guy out in one hit?" and him going "Shadow tried, but ADAM-Tommy/Knuxerjak/SuperScourge is too much of craftyboi/diety/Superform for that to work." It's unfortunate, but I can't say it really affected that much from memory. 
  • Shadow and to an extent Blaze are the two most broken and [near] infallible of the recurring cast; it can be difficult to write stories that involve characters like Bean the Dynamite and/or need to last a fair amount of time with them. This, alongside their popularity and (the last bullet), gave motivation to reasonably limit their involvement in bigger events and "crossover" stories.
  • And finally, given this is Shadow we're talking about, he had a whole supporting cast and other backstory elements that were being built up in the games that provides material for stories about him. So it honestly made sense to have those stories take place in their own little corners unless a crucial part of a bigger event. 
     

Which brings us to World's Unite. It had it's moments(ex.Gemerl), but it primarily turned out to be a mistake on multiple accounts. A lot of editorial pushing(it happening when it did, Xander Payne needing to be toned down), licensing mandates(what characters he used), fan appeal(Freedom Fighters & Light Robot Masters, Wily seeing Zero), and maybe even outsourcing(those other artists and writers) made that sequel crossover a clear mess of epic proportions. As impressive as it was, it really says something that the second and third parts of it had a entire customary page dedicated to showing off every single character involved--which was something like 50 of em.

So when the editor also said "Hey, the stakes aren't high enough--you need to kill off a major character or two," he just rolled his eyes and probably went, "okay, who would a decent person that I can use for that blatant shock value while not getting too in the way? Hm...I guess Mayor Dorado(?), Team Dark, the President, Commander Tower, and his daughter/niece are in a city, so maybe they can be there when Sigma's devices merge the worlds. Will that work? Okay, now to plot out this epic final fight with Super Sonic, Super Adaptor Megaman, and Super X Armor..."

I don't really have any response? Like I agree with everything you are saying and its what is supporting my " He might not car for shadow and shadow's weird to write , so he writes him out of stories " , that's my luke warm take. It isn't as bad as bollers or penders... though emperor shadow was pretty bad, however I don't think not being as bad some of the most embarrassing shit to exist in the franchise isn't a high bar nor does it absolve him of criticism.

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Yeah, and I'm saying you're being ridiculous to suggest that this is the case for Shadow and at all related to why he killed off Team Dark in that crossover. He gave a reasoning, in far more detail then you're giving credit for by the way, and you're choosing to ignore it and dismiss it in favor of something that makes more sense to you. It's baseless and it's silly.

Eh not really. There's no explanation that makes " oh hey you know during this moments video game occasion crossover thing , you know who didn't show up, shadow or blaze  You know who's gonna show up, a bunch of characters from a cartoon that so old adults in the fanbase could have not watched it" make sense besides "In that instance those characters stories were more valuable to him"  which when you calm down and look at it is a very luke warm boring take.

Again this isn't some " Ian flynn is going to destroy our babies or some shit" he had a preference, shadow fans got assed out. Eh.

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:



World's Unite had a lot of things done for the sake of compensation. Your assertion that he absolutely got to focus on just who he wanted to write doesn't even have basis in truth because I know for a fact that he's had to make a ton of compromises based on just what would flow better or stand alone as an advertisement for the book.  The Freedom Fighters weren't in the first crossover because of that.

So this is gonna get addressed later, but he may say things have been sacrificed to flow better. But generally Ian Flynn has an issue with sacrificing things and letting go of storylines and characters he's interested in. I would make the argument the the story going on, now is the result of this. Because it isn't particularly that interesting and he's going on with it. Its a habit , its something that's often called out when criticizing flynn.

If he wants me to not believe this he's going to have to start writing that's flow better, I'm going need to see the results of that, because he never really has. He writes really good dialog but his stories have always had pacing issues.

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

He put the Freedom Fighters in World's Unite because there were people wondering and asking why they weren't in the first crossover and he tried his best to appease that crowd with World's Unite. But, of course, hindsight is 20-20. Too many characters were in that story and he straight up said that if he could do it again he'd remove the Freedom Fighters and the Maverick hunters to try and balance things out. 

You realize that doesn't really negate anything i'm saying? He wanted to tell a story about the freedom fighters, he chose a character he might have not cared for or had any serious plans for to die and his team and that's...it really. There wasn't a lot of room... he made a choice, he picked the character he often picks to write out of stories. If he would go back and change it... that's cool. But what happened, happened.

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

He may not be obligated to talk about his thought process but that hasn't stopped him. He does it routinely and it's really not hard to find. 

You are naive if you think flynn tells all in those podcasts. That man has a job and likes having a job and potential more jobs. And those answers while enlightening in some regards, filtered as fuck

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

You're making shit up and you have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm making pretty reasonable assumptions based off of his previous writing of the character in question.

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'm getting kind of heated right now because, again, I just recently listened to him talking about Eclipse and Shadow Fall and the whole deal with Shadow in one of the older podcasts. The amount of enthusiasm and the heavy emphasis he put into how much hard work went into taking the concepts from Shadow's game and creating Eclipse is something that falls into direct contrast with your hand-waving of it here. This is dumb and I kind of find it intensely insulting and gross. 

Dislike the stories and the direction he took all you want but what you're doing here is basically claiming to know what the guy's intention was without properly looking into the available avenues that actually give you an actual, better understanding of what that may be.

So here's the deal , one he cold simultaneously not be into that character and want to write a decent story about that character. Its not uncommon , ontop of that, that instance doesn't... you know take away ... all the other instances of basically him trying to write shadow out of stories whether its just getting beaten up or just... not existing. Or in the reboots case, being cornered off.

But here's the big two, if he genuinely feels that way. Write the character better, write better versions of the character. Because Ian flynn not getting shadow is genuinely one of the most common criticisms I see about flynn. Its literally a meme at this point and this recent book didn't help. And I disagree with that.I think he gets the character well, and in the instance the reboot where he could isolate him off and tell a story about that... it was good. However its a pretty common sentiment , while yes he can seem emotional and enthusiastic in a podcast. It largely means nothing if the rest of his body of work doesn't really reflect that enthusiasm and it seems like he's trying to write him out of narratives.

You got to write stories to get people to buy into what you are selling, and he never has with shadow...except once.

Even in IDW last year, late in the year what little cool moment shadow undermined , and then he just vanished. And then the next time you see him... this. Like if someone arrives at the conclusion that the person writing might not be fond of the character... I wouldn't blame em. Because while in this instance if the reddit post that started this whole conversation was true, that doesn't explain every other instance of ian with shadow flubbing it up or writing him out of narratives. The meme with ian's writing doesn't exist with any other character except shadow. And there's a reason for that,

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'm not going to accept or have any respect for your dreaming up evidence to support this nonsensical argument you're trying to make. 

This IS conspiracy theory nonsense. 

 

" The writer might not care for this character and cares more about the story and chooses to focus on that" isn't really a gigantic conspiracy theory.. and is a fairly common thing that happens. But sure cool man.

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2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Its not that elaborate and its the charitable read

My sides.

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Simply put, due to the dumpster fire that was archie at that moment and the things his editor was saying to him, he had to make a choice and he choice to get rid of some characters people were asking about so he could focus on the characters he wanted to right

"Write."

Quote

Despite my disdain of the decision, it is not inherently good or bad it is just a thing.

You've been whining about how Shadow was handled in World's Unite (and Archie as a whole) for at least half a year across multiple threads, and that's just from the ones I remember seeing in topics that I usually don't bother looking at since I couldn't give less of a shit about IDW until someone reports something in a thread talking about it. I don't think anyone actually believes that you consider it "just a thing," so much as a "heinous character derailing act that signifies how much the head writer of the comic hates the character I wish I could bang in real life."

Quote

Not in the since that ian flynn is a secret vendetta against shadow as you say it

"Sense."

Quote

This to be very blunt is if you over saw a DC Marvel Crossoever event and decided to kill if batman so he couldn't meet wolverine, but the wonder twins were there.

Maybe if the Wonder Twins had been in the comic for nearly a decade before Batman was and it was far more their comic than it ever was Batman's.

 

And "crossover."

Quote

No he saw the narrative potential in these two dudes who represent generation changes in their respective brand interacting in some way, heck its on the poster.

"It's"

9 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

There's no explanation that makes " oh hey you know during this moments video game occasion crossover thing , you know who didn't show up, shadow or blaze  You know who's gonna show up, a bunch of characters from a cartoon that so old adults in the fanbase could have not watched it" make sense besides "In that instance those characters stories were more valuable to him"  which when you calm down and look at it is a very luke warm boring take.

I know for a fact this was explained to you in such simple terms that it might as well have been phonetic, and you still just ignored it. This goes along with the "make shit up to support my tortured reading of the material" thing that you're constantly called out on.

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1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

Eh not really. There's no explanation that makes " oh hey you know during this moments video game occasion crossover thing , you know who didn't show up, shadow or blaze  You know who's gonna show up, a bunch of characters from a cartoon that so old adults in the fanbase could have not watched it" make sense besides "In that instance those characters stories were more valuable to him"  which when you calm down and look at it is a very luke warm boring take.

That's just something you decided. You decided that it didn't make sense. YOU. 

The fact that you're trying to use something you decided as a benchmark for Ian Flynn's decision making makes no sense.

Saying "Ian is intelligent and therefore I'm giving him credit by saying he wouldn't do something that I deem doesn't make sense to me" is ridiculous. He's explained why he felt he needed to do it and the basis for why is stronger when you have the full context.

It also helps that he, as the writer of the goddamn book, would feel the effects of what the fans of the book all over are asking of him more than you; some guy who just really loves Shadow a lot.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

So this is gonna get addressed later, but he may say things have been sacrificed to flow better. But generally Ian Flynn has an issue with sacrificing things and letting go of storylines and characters he's interested in. I would make the argument the the story going on, now is the result of this. Because it isn't particularly that interesting and he's going on with it. Its a habit , its something that's often called out when criticizing flynn.

If he wants me to not believe this he's going to have to start writing that's flow better, I'm going need to see the results of that, because he never really has. He writes really good dialog but his stories have always had pacing issues.

Did you seriously just try to use your opinion of the current IDW arc as a rebuttal against the fact that he absolutely HAS sacrificed things for the story to flow better? Whatever your opinion of the current arc is doesn't matter when related to this conversation.

Again, you haven't actually looked into ANY of this. It's all readily available but you're choosing to just assume that the man isn't trying any of what you're saying here. This argument is a farce.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

You realize that doesn't really negate anything i'm saying? He wanted to tell a story about the freedom fighters, he chose a character he might have not cared for or had any serious plans for to die and his team and that's...it really. There wasn't a lot of room... he made a choice, he picked the character he often picks to write out of stories. If he would go back and change it... that's cool. But what happened, happened.

Actually it does because this passage on the Freedom Fighters was an example I provided of how he has to sacrifice what he wants to do and make compromises based on not JUST what HE feels will make a good story. Something that you're continuously denying for no discernible reason.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

You are naive if you think flynn tells all in those podcasts. That man has a job and likes having a job and potential more jobs. And those answers while enlightening in some regards, filtered as fuck

I was seriously waiting for you to bring this point up because I knew it'd be the thing people defaulted to as a way to discredit the actual, tangible evidence out there. 

One, I never said he tells all in those podcasts. In fact, he makes it explicitly clear that he sometimes CAN'T tell all in the podcasts and politely rejects questions based on whether or not his job would allow it. This is something you would know if you had looked into it properly. But you didn't. You're basing ALL of this conjecture on a dreamed up scenario created by pure emotion.

Two, the fact remains that actual words coming from his mouth (as well as the tone in which he says them and the detail in which he gives the information) stands as harder, more believable evidence than making stuff up, like you're doing now.

And again, you're not even trying to hide your appeal to emotion with this. "Filtered as fuck" isn't something someone with a reasonable open mind would say in regards to the what he's saying in those podcasts. It's the reaction of someone who's made up their mind based on arbitrary things they cherry picked from the book and have a view of the writer and his responses that's based on... nothing. 

You're not being respectful or charitable at all. This is just insulting and it's even worse because you don't know what you're talking about. 

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

I'm making pretty reasonable assumptions based off of his previous writing of the character in question.

No you're not.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

So here's the deal , one he cold simultaneously not be into that character and want to write a decent story about that character. Its not uncommon , ontop of that, that instance doesn't... you know take away ... all the other instances of basically him trying to write shadow out of stories whether its just getting beaten up or just... not existing. Or in the reboots case, being cornered off.

You're imagining this. This is a FANTASY you've built up in your head.

Ian is juggling a ton of characters in a HUGE cast, both official and comic exclusive, and you're seriously trying to make the claim the THE literal most prominent and featured character in the Archie Books, aside from Sonic, the one who started Sonic Universe and went on to have the most arcs on him and the most presence within them all, was held up by a man who was doing everything he could to write Shadow OUT of stories?

This isn't even something you need to listen to Ian talk about to know how false it is. 

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

But here's the big two, if he genuinely feels that way. Write the character better, write better versions of the character. Because Ian flynn not getting shadow is genuinely one of the most common criticisms I see about flynn. Its literally a meme at this point and this recent book didn't help. And I disagree with that.I think he gets the character well, and in the instance the reboot where he could isolate him off and tell a story about that... it was good. However its a pretty common sentiment , while yes he can seem emotional and enthusiastic in a podcast. It largely means nothing if the rest of his body of work doesn't really reflect that enthusiasm and it seems like he's trying to write him out of narratives.

Even in IDW last year, late in the year what little cool moment shadow undermined , and then he just vanished. And then the next time you see him... this. Like if someone arrives at the conclusion that the person writing might not be fond of the character... I wouldn't blame em. Because while in this instance if the reddit post that started this whole conversation was true, that doesn't explain every other instance of ian with shadow flubbing it up or writing him out of narratives. The meme with ian's writing doesn't exist with any other character except shadow. And there's a reason for that,

It means something if the literal point of the current conversation is the man's INTENTION which IS what we're talking about. If this was a discussion about the quality of the work, we'd be having a completely different discussion right now.

Also, you need to understand how silly of a response "just write the character better" is. How he genuinely feels and how you perceive the way he's writing the character aren't conflatable. Your appeal to popularity when it comes to what you say are the most common criticisms when it comes to his work also is rather flimsy because as far as I'm concerned, most of the criticism for how he writes Shadow has only started just with this most recent book. Largely because it's quite a different approach from what he was doing with him in the Archie books and also largely because no matter what, people are going to have their preferences either way. 

He can't please everybody. I think he's writing Shadow just fine, give a hiccup or two, and other people don't. If he changed the way he wrote him, there's a chance you might like it and I might hate it all of a sudden. "Write the character better" is such a dumb, blanket, dismissive thing to say when talking about whether someone is being genuine or not. 

You can try to argue for the appeal of popularity all you want but it's not going to serve as proof of anything other than you, and whatever this meme culture group you're talking about, don't like the way he's chosen to write this particular character. The conclusion you've reached STILL hasn't been proven to be based on anything but a silly appeal to emotion with no further research done.

This isn't even going into the fact that I feel some of this stuff about the reception of his writing of Shadow overall is overblown on your end. 

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

" The writer might not care for this character and cares more about the story and chooses to focus on that" isn't really a gigantic conspiracy theory.. and is a fairly common thing that happens. But sure cool man.

The nonsense you used to sloppily reach that conclusion gives off the mental image of someone stringing up charts in their room to reach a conclusion based on what they've dreamed up in their head. It's got no basis in anything he's actually said. Simplify what you think you're doing as best you can all you want but all you've got is your perception of the stories. You don't have anything that supports the intention, so the fact that you're so brazzen to speak as if you know what that intention is makes this incredibly mystifying and silly. 

 

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55 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I don't really have any response? Like I agree with everything you are saying and its what is supporting my " He might not car for shadow and shadow's weird to write , so he writes him out of stories " , that's my luke warm take. It isn't as bad as bollers or penders... though emperor shadow was pretty bad, however I don't think not being as bad some of the most embarrassing shit to exist in the franchise isn't a high bar nor does it absolve him of criticism.

 

Oh, I know. I somewhat agree with the basic idea of inhibiting Shadow in part because it's how Id probably do it, especially nowadays. 

I just don't think it's quite that conscious. Sorry bout the length. 

Oh and King Shadow was apparently an editorial idea that Mr Penders was supposed to do. 

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