Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Dr. Detective]

The set-up for Mr. Tinker wasn't even about Mr. Tinker himself and whatever stories, if any, could be told with him. It was about providing a grounds for the morality conflict to creep in, which absolutely HAS taken up a sizeable amount of the book. It definitely has not been forgotten. Its inclusion within the narrative lead to one of the most interesting back and forths that I've seen Sonic and Eggman have when discussing the merit behind who Eggman is and what he desires.

It did a lot for the development of his character and yes it IS character development. So often people confuse what that is by mistakenly believing that a character HAS to change as a result of it but thats not the case. The act of developing a character can go as far as simply finding out more about them. Thats why flashbacks and character studies are often considered apart of that even though they don't lead to the character, as they are now, changing in anyway. Ian obviously can't do flashbacks that dive into their deep origins but he can do character study and he's done it rather well here.

Not just by taking the characters and pushing them to their limits by making them undergo extreme stress and backing them into corners where they make tough and sometimes irrational decisions but often by just allowing them to emote and react to things in interesting ways.

It doesn't matter that Eggman will never change. Being shown that there's a part of him that did in fact enjoy his time as Mr. Tinker morphs the perception of his character, forever. You can't return to the time when you were ignorant of that knowledge and from now on its going to, in some way, color the meaning behind his actions going forward. At least it will for me.

I'll never be able to forget it or his warped rational that making everyone mindless zombies under his thumb is the way towards creating a happy world with which for him to rule over. The abscense of free will, the abscense of anyone's will but his own is what drives him to do what he does. Its incredibly creepy and something I wouldn't be able to ponder and be left to chew on had the Mr. Tinker plot not existed.

 

 

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

The set-up for Mr. Tinker wasn't even about Mr. Tinker himself and whatever stories, if any, could be told with him. It was about providing a grounds for the morality debate to creep in, which absolutely HAS taken up a sizeable amount of the book. It definiteky has not been forgotten. Its inclusion within the narrative lead to one of the most interesting back and forths that I've seen Sonic and Eggman have when discussing the merit behind who Eggman is and what he desires.

It did a lot for the development of his character and yes it IS character development. So often people confuse what that is by mistakenly believing that a character HAS to change as a result of it but thats not the case. The act of developing a character can go as far as simply finding out more about them. Thats why flashbacks and character studies are often considered apart of that even though they don't lead to the character, as they are now, changing in anyway. Ian obviously can't do flashbacks that dive into their deep origins but he can do character study and he's done it rather well here.

Not just by taking the characters and pushing them to their limits by making them undergo extreme stress and backing them into corners where they make tough and sometimes irrational decisions but often by just allowing them to emote and react to things in interesting ways.

It doesn't matter that Eggman will never change. Being shown that there's a part of him that did in fact enjoy his time as Mr. Tinker morphs the perception of his character, forever. You can't return to the time when you were ignorant of that knowledge and from now on its going to, in some way, color the meaning behind his actions going forward. At least it will for me.

I'll never be able to forget it or his warped rational that making everyone mindless zombies under his thumb is the way towards creating a happy world with which for him to rule over. The abscense of free will, the abscense of anyone's will but his own is what drives him to do what he does. Its incredibly creepy and something I wouldn't be able to ponder and be left to chew on had the Mr. Tinker plot not existed.

 

 

I don't think that matters much unless its regularly acted upon. Specifically because how it came about.

If I may use another villain example. Dr. Doom. He's a villain but he isn't always villainous he's looking out often for himself so that puts him at odds with good and bad guys and he respects people that he feels deserves that respect. And he has soft spots like his god children and his own children and his mom , these things are regular parts of his character that doesn't really need to be coaxed out of him these are things part of his character you can see.

Mr Tinker isn't Eggman. Mr. Tinker is Mr. Tinker. What this entire argument and what sonic as a series proposes is that our experiences and your memories are what make you who you are. That's sonic's argument from the beginning. Shadow shouldn't kill him because the man before him, isn't the same man who did all that other bad stuff. And by that same token, Eggman isn't the same guy who did all that good stuff. He has some vague memory of it. But it doesn't really matter, it is at best a hypothetical. Its not development. Tinker is what happens when eggman just lacks the memories and evil influences that made Ivo robotnik, Dr. Eggman. That's not development, that's a what if story at best.

You could write a story about shadow being a happier person if he didn't see a bunch of people get murdered. That doesn't really play into shadow's current development at all. Its just..a what if scenario. And that's what this is

Unless there's going to be regularly turning back into tinker, that's not development.

And no one is claiming development solely needs to be about change. The issue is nothing is happening. And Eggman saying " that was kinda neat, but I like being an asshole " is representative of that. The tinker thing plays to role into who is as a person now and had to be envoked by sonic to even matter. And we haven't even mentioned sonic who has yet to and will not waver in his thinking because he can't. And shadow who doesn't even have agency.

If Eggman had been pretending to be tinker and then had that thought. That's Eggman having that thought. That would mean something. Him having residual memories of another life, and those memories seeming kind of pleasant because he was literally a different person and then deciding he likes the person he is now isn't growth or development. It reinforces who he is, that's what that scene is supposed to do btw. That's the whole point

[Kuzu]

I feel like all of these debates are kind of null and void until this arc is finished. There's been no follow up to the Tinkerer storyline because that's not the focus of the story right now. As it stands now, it's a means to get Eggman back in the picture.

But that doesn't mean Flynn can't follow up on it in a later arc as @Sega DogTagz said.

But I feel its important to know that the fact that its still being brought up even during this arc means that it hasn't been dropped at all.

 

 

Whether it leads to an interesting storyline remains to be seen. Yes, the comic is very limited in what it can do because it has to stay within the confines of a certain status quo, but that doesn't mean that you can't do anything interesting with it either, even if nothing will change at the end of the day.

[Shadowlax]

23 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like all of these debates are kind of null and void until this arc is finished.

So that's kinda fair. Like I still think there is value in discussing the story so far. But on some level we kinda have to wait

I just think , I dunno. Unless they pull something out in the last bit of this arc which is mostly about fighting the D6 to make time to actually address the morality argument in some meaningful way. I don't think its going to happen. Sonic and Eggman are set in their ways and shadow has no agency to discuss it at the moment.

Yeah It may come up in a later arc, but at least in my case i'm not discussing a hypothetical later arc. I'm discussing this one, and...it kinda sucks and is not needed whatsoever. And even if they figure out a way to make it neat later, I don't think this really fixes this weird non storyline ontop of an arc that already has pacing issues.

And just because it hasn't been dropped yet, doesn't mean it can't be. Ian Flynn said himself that he doesn't even know if he can actually do anything with shadow at this point because of sega. Who is very much apart of this argument of morality. If that continues to be the case... he will kinda have to. And that's part of the reason It feels kind of wasted at this point.

Maybe sega changed their mind. If so, radical. I'm here for it. But as of currently , there are no signs of this happening. And as of currently in this arc that story bit kinda...sucks and seems unnecessary.

But I do think waiting to see how things pan out has merit. That said this brings me to a point I had been wanting to bring up for a while about IDW and the current world being ...on fire in various ways. Its not the best for them, they were already not in the best shape financially, but with situations like this particularly with the diamond publishing ( the monopoly comic printing  and publishing firm. That's not a joke someone has a monopoly over that and its messed up). Deciding to not publish thing may put IDW in a worse situation. And while its not probably its still possible that this IDW sonic comic is short lived.

My first thought it is that I hope that everyone working at IDW whether employee or contract worker stay safe and alive. And I hope they get friggin paid.

My second thought is the lack of digital distribution in a lot of comic books, is going to result in a lot of cancelations. And not just in comic books, film, video games what have you. The current global goings on is going to effect how things are developed going forward

My third thought is , it would kind of suck if this comic ended up being short lived.

[Kuzu]

To be honest, I get the feeling your dissatisfaction is mainly rooted that you don't really care about Sonic and Eggman's morality issues and annoyed how Shadow was used as patsy for that. Which is fair, since the latter is your favorite.

Don't really know what else to say beyond just wait and see.

I do think @Wraith had a point before about how looking at this from the angle of "They're never gonna change cuz Sonic's a brand" is already a flawed mindset.

I feel like this type of storyline requires you to break your suspension of disbelief just a bit. Just because from a meta standpoint Eggman will never change sides, doesn't make the question invalid to explore.

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like all of these debates are kind of null and void until this arc is finished. There's been no follow up to the Tinkerer storyline because that's not the focus of the story right now. As it stands now, it's a means to get Eggman back in the picture.

But that doesn't mean Flynn can't follow up on it in a later arc as @Sega DogTagz said.

But I feel its important to know that the fact that its still being brought up even during this arc means that it hasn't been dropped at all.

 

 

Whether it leads to an interesting storyline remains to be seen. Yes, the comic is very limited in what it can do because it has to stay within the confines of a certain status quo, but that doesn't mean that you can't do anything interesting with it either, even if nothing will change at the end of the day.

Again, I would argue there's been plenty of follow-up. I'm not sure what exactly there is to wait for. We're seeing the aftermath of what happened now. Sonic's guilt regarding how he handled the situation has been explored. The exploration of Eggman's psyche has happened. Its been serving its purpose this whole time. That'll probably continue too.

What story regarding it is there to wait for? I'm just curious. I doubt he's going to return to that headspace and I don't currently see what point doing so would serve.

[Kuzu]

I was mainly responding to Shadowlax's post. I'm fine with what's been happening tbh

 

[Kuzu]

Issue #34 Cover

Spoiler

 

 

[DabigRG]

I remember having some misgivings about...well, a number of things in the comic, but mostly focused on this arc. It's funny that it does a number of things I'm sure I and others have wanted to and/or have enjoyed seeing, but they're mixed amongst others in an arc that gives us those feelings.

The Shadow related stuff is was a fairly consistent bummer obviously, though he thankfully ceased being super relevant/topical for the most part. I think that might be right--we could have this arc and what not without him showing up initially.

25 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Issue #34 Cover

  Hide contents

 

 

Oooh...shit

[Big Panda]

*looks at credits on the bottom*
It’s fake.

EDIT: the lack of an IDW logo is also a pretty big giveaway.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Yeah it's an April Fools joke.

But that cover is pretty cool tho.

[Sega DogTagz]

That's a pretty good April fool's take. I feel like I just got kicked in the nuts. 

[Dr. Detective]

I like these kinds of April Fools jokes. The ones that give us cool artwork and cool animations and junk.

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

Issue #34 Cover

  Hide contents

 

 

Got me for a few second until I remembered the date

[Kuzu]

Is it bad that I almost wanted it to be real. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

Is it bad that I REALLY wanted it to be real?

[Shadowlax]

5 hours ago, Kuzu said:

To be honest, I get the feeling your dissatisfaction is mainly rooted that you don't really care about Sonic and Eggman's morality issues and annoyed how Shadow was used as patsy for that. Which is fair, since the latter is your favorite.

Don't really know what else to say beyond just wait and see.

I do think @Wraith had a point before about how looking at this from the angle of "They're never gonna change cuz Sonic's a brand" is already a flawed mindset.

I feel like this type of storyline requires you to break your suspension of disbelief just a bit. Just because from a meta standpoint Eggman will never change sides, doesn't make the question invalid to explore.

You are right about one thing

 I dont care about eggman's morality as a plot point. I think I mentioned this before. But I just dont think eggman is build for such deep dives. Hes a character who thrives on suspension of disbelief oddly enough. A communally excepted ludonarrative dissonance,  we just except hes just eggman and move on. To call his actions into question makes his actions real in a way it was never intended to be. I dont mind characters having morality or arguments of persoective. Knuckles and shadow fighting and then understanding each other is one my favorite things from the last comic. I think it should happen more often. I just dont think there is anything narratively to gain or there is any where to go. Because the end of that role, with eggman is a dictator. Which is a serious thing that sonic try as he might cabt argue for and imo has been failing the entire time. I dont think it's an interesting question, the answer is dictator. That's just a universally acknowledged fucked up thing.

My shadow issues with this story lie primarily in a lack of agency. And it's less about him and more about sonic weirdly enough.  Shadow hasn't really ever gotten to make his case. Regardless of him being kinda right, it never feels like sonic has ever had his perspective challenged. Even in the original version of the story, shadow was going to "die". The character who could provide an argument is gone. Sonic is left outside of physical tiredness left unchallenged. Which to me speaks to how poor sonic's argument is in the first place. Even when arguing with eggman about eggman it just seemed flawed and sociopathic in some ways and left unchallenged it just comes off as weird wasted dialog.

I would rather have those scenes dedicated to other characters than hear or see sonic state his ideals with no push back.

I got other issues with shadow in this book, and in general these days. But here, sonic arguing with no one. Eggman doesn't care, so it's just him vaguely shouting his ideals at people like a metal gear character.

There's a fair point to be made that expecting everything to change is unrealistic. And the idea that is what makes a good story is a very limited view if story telling. And I agree with that idea and . But there's an argument to be made that understanding why the elements of a story work can allow you to things narratively going nowhere. Primarily eggman.

Who is eggman really: a dictator.

Should you kill a dictator:  yeah prolly

The morality question that started this wasn't even about eggman it was about tinker and amnesia. But tinker became eggman effectively invalidating any dive into that. Because eggman is a dictator and killing one is kinda free real estate as far as character morality goes. The only thing that story had going for sonic was the amnesia. That's gone now. There's nothing to dive into and explore.

The morality question itself was flimsy and now it's gone. To quote my got dang self

12 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 

The story between sonic , eggman and shadow regarding this morality is not being told and seemingly it can't be.

The story is bad because there is no story. There is a proclamation of ideals and then nothing.

 

 

The morality argument lived and died with tinker. Sonic's argument for eggman's existence now is his usefulness,  but after this is over...then what? Does sonic jump in every time shadow tries to kill eggman. His argument was only meant for tinker. And doesn't work eggman the dictator.

As it stands the morality argument is

Sonic: I believe in you

Eggman: oh that's cute I'm very evil. I'm unbelievably evil. There's no gray area I literally almost murdered all living things on the planet to fuck with you. And the only reason I'm helping you now is they started to fuck with me. This is entirely self serving.

Shadow: edgelord zombie noises.

Doesn't seem like much on an argument. That argument died with eggman cane back. It's just spinning its wheels.

47 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Is it bad that I almost wanted it to be real. 

 

15 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Is it bad that I REALLY wanted it to be real?

Didnt know you two were such big infinite fans.

[Zaysho]

Much as I hate the way Infinite was written, I do kinda wish Ian got to take more of a crack at him besides the Forces prequel comic. I'm not saying he'd work miracles or anything, but he sold me on characters like Scourge and I can at least tolerate how he handles the Deadly Six, it would certainly be a lot fucking better than anything the game did.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Is it bad that I almost wanted it to be real. 

 

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Is it bad that I REALLY wanted it to be real?

Maybe one day.

Just not anytime soon.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

sociopathic

[Kuzu]

@Shadowlax Fair points on all accounts. It's a very messy dynamic overall with two objectively static characters, but I at least prefer Flynn trying to do something with fleshing Sonic & Eggman as it's something the series never really bothers to try and most of the time, they just end up as background noise while all of the other interesting plotlines and character dynamics revolve around other characters. So it was nice for that dynamic to be called into question in some way, even if the result if the wasn't perfect because it shows an attempt at trying to develop a somewhat stagnant dynamic. 

 

 

Also, Flynn has a pretty good track record for taking rubbish ideas and making them tolerable; I sure as hell didn't care about Silver before he played his dorky and awkward traits and now he's actually kind of endearing. Not saying he'd make Infinite a great character or anything, but I'm at least sure he'd do more than what Forces did with him.

[Red Hot Jack]

What I was saying in the status, is that Infinite actually had more going on and still he didn't leave a mark, the Deadly Six are used in veeeery small doses outside of their debut game, they way offer less than Infinite, and somehow work better as antagonists, maybe as bosses especially.

I still need that Deadly Six cartoon that succeeds in making them funny, for real.

[SBR2]

16 hours ago, Gentle Criminal said:

Because it's interesting to see them be the ones who fail and have to pick themselves back up. It lets us see a lot better what happens when the character dynamics are reversed and how characters react.

That's one of the saving graces of this arc. As @Wraith said above, we rarely, if ever get to see Sonic and co under this level of stress and forced to confront their own failings, and that's interesting for a cast of characters we never get to see really do that.

They've tried to do it before in the games only to fail a lot at it. Lost World attempted it with Sonic constantly screwing up, but it fell flat because it felt contrived, and Forces attempted it too, but failed because Sonic just doesn't react and still acts like his good ol' snarky self.

It gets boring seeing heroes win all the time, and getting to see them in unique and unusual situations where they have to get through great adversity makes for very interesting storylines. 

Eggman Empire in Archie was brilliant for this reason, when we got to see the roles reversed as Eggman becomes the snarky carefree fighter, while constantly taunting and pushing every single button Sonic has, causing him to get enraged. Seeing Sonic utterly defeated and destroyed just made it all the more interesting when he did have to pick himself back up and work around how to defeat Eggman.

Frankly, a hero is only as good as the villain or adversary he faces. I don't think we really want a total lose (although it's nice to see it sometimes to shake the status quo), but we do want the hero to go through adversity, and possibly not even get out of the story unscathed. It's a boring and safe ending to have everything return to normal/status quo at the end, having a hero lose in some aspect gives them room to grow, and gives them a potential arc to work from. It's why it's interesting to see Sonic pushed to absolute breaking point - where he threatened to infect Eggman. It's not normally somewhere we'd see the character taken, and it's only achieved by him losing quite a few encounters beforehand to push him to that breaking point.

Well yeah that I'm ok with. Heroes going through a hard time and rising up from it is great and the exact kind of stuff Ian always does.

What confuses me is that people seem to not want that but just for Sonic to permanently lose and never come back from it which just seems like a bad narrative to me. Maybe I'm misreading people's intent but it really has always felt like that when I hear people talk about the "Sonic can't lose" mandate.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 minute ago, SBR2 said:

Well yeah that I'm ok with. Heroes going through a hard time and rising up from it is great and the exact kind of stuff Ian always does.

What confuses me is that people seem to not want that but just for Sonic to permanently lose and never come back from it which just seems like a bad narrative to me. Maybe I'm misreading people's intent but it really has always felt like that when I hear people talk about the "Sonic can't lose" mandate.

Yeah, I don’t know where you’re hearing that from.

Most complaints towards the “Sonic can never lose” center around the thought that the mandate would reduce tensions and stakes, and that Sonic would risk becoming a boring invincible hero as a result as they criticize in cases like Generations and Colors. No ones asking he permanently lose, just that he not always win lest he be seen as “perfect”.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Zaysho said:

Much as I hate the way Infinite was written, I do kinda wish Ian got to take more of a crack at him besides the Forces prequel comic. I'm not saying he'd work miracles or anything, but he sold on me characters like Scourge and I can at least tolerate how he handles Deadly Six, it would certainly be a lot fucking better than anything the game did.

I think ian could write the non existant pants off of him. Oh well I suppose.

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

@Shadowlax Fair points on all accounts. It's a very messy dynamic overall with two objectively static characters, but I at least prefer Flynn trying to do something with fleshing Sonic & Eggman as it's something the series never really bothers to try and most of the time, they just end up as background noise while all of the other interesting plotlines and character dynamics revolve around other characters. So it was nice for that dynamic to be called into question in some way, even if the result if the wasn't perfect because it shows an attempt at trying to develop a somewhat stagnant dynamic. 

I will always appreciate...I was going to say an attempt. But I will say most attempts because i dont appreciate ken's. But I appreciate Ian's attempts. But sometimes they fall a bit short. That in combination with dragged out arc, a lot of things are getting a bit long in the tooth.

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

 

Maybe one day.

Just not anytime soon.

No I stand by that. If you read this sonic and his morality stance its selfish and self serving at best. At worst sociopathic.

It would actually be a fascinating take on sonic if it wasn't unintentional

[Kuzu]

Ken actively tried to push Sonic & Eggman out of the spotlight to focus on his own original story and characters lol.