Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[Dr. Mechano]

Like many of you, I got totally blindsided by Eggman throwing Amy under the bus after she saved him.

Eggman's this unpredictable character who sometimes acts like an affable, gentlemanly scientist with a code of honor (leaping to save Tails in Lost World, rescuing Sonic from certain death in Sonic 2 8-bit, etc.) and sometimes he's just a total self-centered bastard, and somehow neither feels contradictory or out of character.

Because you can never really tell what he'll do, I always root for him to do the right thing and feel disappointed and even kinda mad at him when he doesn't. That's not a bad point to the writing at all, mind you! The fact that Ian's able to make Eggman likable enough that acts like this still feel shocking instead of totally expected is actually something I like.

[MetalSkulkBane]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Eggman's this unpredictable character who sometimes acts like an affable, gentlemanly scientist with a code of honor (leaping to save Tails in Lost World, rescuing Sonic from certain death in Sonic 2 8-bit, etc.) and sometimes he's just a total self-centered bastard, and somehow neither feels contradictory or out of character.

Really? I never got that feel out of him.

Lost World was necessary team up at best, act to fool Sonic at worst.

Sonic 2 Game Gear was silent scene, open to interpretation. I think he just preferred for Sonic to perish at hand of his robot (good lord that boss was hard). For me it's ego, not nobility.

For me closest Eggman got to being honorable was in SA2, saluting Sonic as his capsule explodes (instead of starting dancing or something) and having a little heart-to-heart with Tails when credits roll. And that was serious game with special circumstances, just like Mr Tinker. Mostly he's like this.

[Dr. Mechano]

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Really? I never got that feel out of him.

Lost World was necessary team up at best, act to fool Sonic at worst.

Sonic 2 Game Gear was silent scene, open to interpretation. I think he just preferred for Sonic to perish at hand of his robot (good lord that boss was hard). For me it's ego, not nobility.

For me closest Eggman got to being honorable was in SA2, saluting Sonic as his capsule explodes (instead of starting dancing or something) and having a little heart-to-heart with Tails when credits roll. And that was serious game with special circumstances, just like Mr Tinker. Mostly he's like this.

I don't want us to get too sidetracked, but there's also stuff like Eggman telling Shadow the truth about his identity in ShtH's last story. He didn't need to do that, and it provided no tactical advantage for him; there was no ulterior motive there. He just decided to be honest with Shadow in what could have been their final moments, you know?

Either way, my point in bringing these moments up is just how disarming they are. Eggman is legitimately charming and likable enough that when he does do really horrible things, it's both totally in-character and yet still more... "shocking" than if, say, a villain who's perpetually unpleasant and antagonistic like Black Doom or Mephiles were to do it. As a reader and a viewer, I almost get sucked in to the idea that Eggman might really be an okay guy... and then he reminds me every time that he isn't.

Which again is a plus, not a complaint. 

[Kuzu]

That is the strength of Flynn's Eggman imo; everyone is so used to not taking him seriously and him just being a goofball, it makes the moments when he's genuinely an evil bastard stand out that much more.

I know it's not everyone's preferred interpretation of the character, and some like him being somewhat lighthearted and sympathetic, but I can't say that I really dislike just how much self serving asshole he is under Ian's pen. He is very much a "Love to hate" here and its refreshing to me.

[Razule]

I wasn't surprised by Eggman shoving Amy, but something about it didn't really click with me. It's totally in-character with this interpretation of Eggman, but I guess some part of me still thinks "It's one thing to take them prisoner and threaten them but when you actually hurt somebody, that's going too far." Eggman from X is the definitive version of him.

[calamityCons]

I can certainly see Eggman as hypocritical in that way. The inner machinations of his mind are an enigma, really 

[GentlemanX]

The Knuckles not leaving Angel Island line is probably from the 7-13-20 Bumblekast.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

Interesting idea I read somewhere.

Maybe sonic should have a mr. Tinker moment (he crashes back to earth, loses his memory and thinks he is someone else.) Would be like an uno reverse on the idea that eggman was mr. Tinker for a while.

[KoDaiko]

17 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I haven't read the issue yet, but saw a few spoilers, and as a fan of the character (well, prior to Lost World) - about Tails...

  Reveal hidden contents

I think this is insanely justifiable for why Tails did what he did here. I don't got the full context, but the situations from the off-set is completely different. One was stripping Tails of all agency to the point that he was cowering against Badniks, that's even before Sonic ends up getting destroyed by the villain squad, and then going straight into a despair abyss, to the point he's unable to fight the weakest form of Chaos when he beat so many of his higher tier forms already.

Here, Tails has seen every hope dashed in front of him, he's saw tons upon tons of his friends being turned, Sonic himself in the preview pages is on the verge of turning, Knuckles, possibly one of his closest friends after Sonic himself ended up giving himself up solely to buy them precious seconds to win.

But when Tails gets infected, not even fully turned, but just touched enough to be infected, you have to imagine what's running through the kid's mind. Being forced into a brainless shell of your former self to turn on your friends and transform them into the same thing. Tails is someone who always tries to find a solution through invention and creation, and now he's not only going to lose himself, as well as the intelligence that defines him, but he's forced to sit there with a slow infection, a slow burn - it's absolutely cruel. 

It's one thing if it's a straight infection, but that is on the level of cruelty as to what happened when Tangle was infected - being forced to slowly turn, realising that there's nothing else you can do, that these next few moments are the last few moments remaining of your sanity, of your being. Not only did Tails fail to save his friends with a cure, but now he's forced to deal with the fact that in his last few moments of being himself, he wasn't good enough to help Sonic, or help the friends that are dropping like flies to Zavok. To a kid like Tails, that's absolutely heart-shattering, and frankly, making him deal with it as he slowly turns is probably one of the darkest things in the comic so far.

 

Aw geez it reminds me of when I decided to comment on one of those people who were upset...

Spoiler

I only explained that it made sense in the context of the story (with many of the reasoning you gave here) but that person was furious and kept saying "well this game said otherwise, well this game had it worse, well in this game he was fine!"  And I immediately lost the motivation to try and talk to them. 

This person was already criticizing every element of the IDW so I should've known, but it was interesting they were one of the many only looked at that out-of-context panel and went full rage. Idk if they even read the whole run or only look through several panels/pages that's leaked online.

 

[Shadowlax]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

That is the strength of Flynn's Eggman imo; everyone is so used to not taking him seriously and him just being a goofball, it makes the moments when he's genuinely an evil bastard stand out that much more.

I know it's not everyone's preferred interpretation of the character, and some like him being somewhat lighthearted and sympathetic, but I can't say that I really dislike just how much self serving asshole he is under Ian's pen. He is very much a "Love to hate" here and its refreshing to me.

I like this eggman a lot actually. I just as stated previously didn't like the weird moral bit around him. I think this comic's eggman is perfect though. Archie eggman was sinister in a way I wasn't particularly fond of. This eggman is bad, evil but in a way that works.He reaches a balance of silly and " wow you are a bad person " that works really well.

 

Edit thought: I wonder

Was the first draft of the metal virus story. Not infact a metal virus but the cyrstal stuff what's his face used on omega maybe?

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

I like this eggman a lot actually. I just as stated previously didn't like the weird moral bit around him. I think this comic's eggman is perfect though. Archie eggman was sinister in a way I wasn't particularly fond of. This eggman is bad, evil but in a way that works.He reaches a balance of silly and " wow you are a bad person " that works really well.

(Using this as an opportunity to explain that I can't delete quotes on mobile)

4 hours ago, calamityCons said:

I can certainly see Eggman as hypocritical in that way. The inner machinations of his mind are an enigma, really 

Thats kind of it, really. While his more heartfelt moments are genuine bits of vulnerability, he absolutely wouldn't be opposed to some of those instances. He likely won't go to the dark levels some other villians would, but he'll certainly do or at least make a good threat of things if it's to his benefit. 

Granted, Black Narcissus putting Chris and Cosmo through electric torture or whatever is indeed too much, which just might have been the intended distinction--unlike most of the Zeti, Eggman isn't a dedicated sadist. With him, it's all about his ego: being able to boast that he bested or destroyed his enemies in the process of getting what he wants as a testament to his brilliance.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

Edit thought: I wonder

Was the first draft of the metal virus story. Not infact a metal virus but the cyrstal stuff what's his face used on omega maybe?

What, Walter's crystalline magick? 

Naw, it was supposed to be the alternative to Robotization Axel mentioned and it would've been tested out on Taselboy by Maw, who Sonic would've fought before getting infected himself.

[calamityCons]

I definitely agree on Eggman valuing his own ego over sadism itself. There have been many times when he gets mad at things for being indiscriminately destructive yet his rampant pollution of the world through making his Eggman Empire/Eggmanland/Personal Theme Park causes just as much long term damage as, say, Dark Gaia or the Black Arms Invasion.  

[Sonictrainer]

15 hours ago, Celestia said:

One thing I'll say is that this arc in particular is what made me wonder, after about 20 years, if the others even have a way to contact Knuckles long distance...like does he have a phone...I assume Tails usually goes to pick him up like in Heroes but what about when he just shows up seemingly on his own? Does the M.E. warn him? Questions are fun.

I just assumed that like Sonic Lost World, Tails made Miles Electric Tablets for everyone.

Although I am curious if Knuckles can use a tablet with his gloves...

[Fire-N-Space]

Spoiler

Why did Eggman feel the need to kick Amy from behind if he was just going to run away Amy was already distracting the zombies is this something the writer just wanted to see? 

Seeing Zavok lose this easily is just sad to watch and this comic keeps saying all their powers come from the emeralds which isn't right. 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 minutes ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Spoiler

Why did Eggman feel the need to kick Amy from behind if he was just going to run away Amy was already distracting the zombies is this something the writer just wanted to see? 

 

Firstly, spoilers.

Secondly - because he's a petty douchebag who will take any chance to screw over his enemies, and that's been a common theme of Eggman in both Archie and IDW for the longest time. This is the same dude who not only in Archie did things like personal attacks on Sonic's friends to screw with him, and engaged in a fight where he beat Sonic, doing nothing but constantly winding him up, and infuriating him, only to tease and mock him more when his attempts to do anything failed.

The same man who imprisoned his own nephew and made a robot duplicate of him to take his place, straight to being sub-subservient to the Iron Queen and do anything for her so that Snively would never be rescued, and forced to watch his life be taken from him. 

Hell, this is the exact same man who not only set up Rough and Tumble with self-destructing packs of goo, but also specifically chose the village that nursed him back to health and gave him a second chance at a peaceful life solely for the sake of "thanking" them for their help. Eggman is a child who'll stop at nothing to get in any kind of slight in on anyone he can. In a situation where Eggman could probably see the end, he'd still take the chance to dick over Sonic, and his friends one last time for one vain silly hope of small victory over them. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

5 minutes ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Why did Eggman feel the need to kick Amy from behind if he was just going to run away Amy was already distracting the zombies is this something the writer just wanted to see? 

Cuz he’s an opportunistic dick like that. Not really surprising from a guy who’s willing to take any advantage he can get without a second thought, which is often why his ego and pride gets the better of him and screws him over as often as that meddling hedgehog and his friends.

 

[Sonictrainer]

Well, it can't be as worse as that time when he used Mind Control to make her fight Sonic.

[DabigRG]

5 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

Well, it can't be as worse as that time when he used Mind Control to make her fight Sonic.

When was that?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

23 minutes ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Why did Eggman feel the need to kick Amy from behind if he was just going to run away Amy was already distracting the zombies is this something the writer just wanted to see? 

Cuz he’s an opportunistic dick like that. Not really surprising from a guy who’s willing to take any advantage he can get without a second thought, which is often why his ego and pride gets the better of him and screws him over as often as that meddling hedgehog and his friends.

EDIT: Yo, wtf is with this duplicate?

 

[Sonictrainer]

21 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

When was that?

It happens in Sonic Pinball Party

Tails also get mind controlled.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I have never heard of Sonic Pinball Party until now...

[Sonictrainer]

2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I have never heard of Sonic Pinball Party until now...

In the beginning, it was only available at Target...for some reason.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Just now, Sonictrainer said:

In the beginning, it was only available at Target...for some reason.

No wonder, I don’t shop at Target for games. XD

Probably wouldn’t have picked it up either way.

[MetalSkulkBane]

11 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I have never heard of Sonic Pinball Party until now...

What kind of fan are you? Get your pen and paper and start learning that deep Sonic mythology.

Sonic X on Leapster, Tails Music Maker, Ghost Shooting arcade game. It will all be on exams, mister!

[DabigRG]

24 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

It happens in Sonic Pinball Party

Tails also get mind controlled.

Okay, I knew about Tails, but not about Amy. Which I don't know why, considering there weren't that many recurring characters in that time period and most of the spinoffs mainly focused on the Classic Five.