Shadow problems topic

[Dash Speed]

Note this isn't a vent out what problems the characters had in the past, but more what the problems that grew over time with his character in current media.

 

For me it's the gun plot(even more emphasized in the sonic universe comics) which imo was completely a wrong turn for character and made him a tool to be sidelined away from sonic.

 

It's pretty much why I hated Ian's Archie shadow, the main badass anti hero that told sonic to stick it where the chaos emeralds don't shine a fought sonic to a near defeating standstill to the point sonic was going to die was replaced by a angst teenage jarhead serving the very humans who killed his only loved one being lead by a bland American sterotype with the worst mcguffian serving as shadows morality pet, a Maria reject.

 

And oh his plots weren't even involved with sonics he never felt like he was apart of the elite of heroes alongside sonic , sally, knuckles even silver despite being just as powerful, just like he was from the games. He was too small steps for Sonic and FF, it was embarrassing he had a joined arc with team up any, AMY OF ALL CHARACTERS, same with blaze but justified since they had context coming from the games to team up Amy, cream and blaze(go girl power I guess) in the comics while team dark works with them why? Shadow is so beyond her pay grade in power,dynamic and depth it was a terriable joke arc for me. Not to mention, Amy working with one of sonics most dangerous rivals and adversaries is pis(Plot Induced Stupidity), why would she want to help someone who can kill sonic alongside metal sonic and eggman generally going by the games.

Then there's rouge and omega, these two are as ruthless and dangerous as Shadow, and should be in the thick of the most dangerous missions and tasks not helping little girls and a alternate dimensional queens. This is an insult to team dark who is literally team sonic on hard mode, the baddest of asses, and the best of GUN(the best of the best so stories should reflect that) even though they should all need to be neutral and grey centered with no affiliation to anyone but themselves.

In the games has borderline back to his pre redemption self in sa2, but honestly I kinda like that side of him, even if it undoes his character development from shth to 06. It wasn't that good in character development either to me, it made him even more generic than anything his edgy action game presented, because he was another sonic buddy nemesis like knuckles and chaos before him. At least he stays unpredictable to Sonic and keeps true to his non conventional theme of being the non evil anti sonic for the most part.

But now hes barely used for anything major and same goes for rouge and omega, so it's difficult what problems to point out without him doing something major in games story line wise.

So what's your issue with how shadow problems never being explored.

[rosedust]

No offense but I don't get your complaints at all, lol.

 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

I might be misreading this, but it sounds like "I don't like Shadow's progression in the game, but I'm going to blame the comics/Ian, and I also don't like him having a life outside of Sonic."

[rosedust]

Just now, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I might be misreading this, but it sounds like "I don't like Shadow's progression in the game, but I'm going to blame the comics/Ian, and I also don't like him having a life outside of Sonic."

No, you read the whole topic to filth actually LMAO.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

"To filth"?

Edit: Oh wow, I just looked that up, and I didn't mean anything that harsh by it! 

[rosedust]

1 minute ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

"To filth"?

Reading something to filth is basically pointing out every flaw in something to the point that the person's arguement is in "filth", basically, lol. 

[Cornelius Fudge]

My issue with Shadow is that Sonic Team hasn't found a way to implement him into the modern games. In a sense, it gives me the impression that Shadow's story was over once he became a hero who wasn't troubled by his past hence why Forces depicts him as a villain because that's the only way they know how to implement him. Shadow seemed to have reached a dead-end for Sonic Team.

[rosedust]

1 minute ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

My issue with Shadow is that Sonic Team hasn't found a way to implement him into the modern games. In a sense, it gives me the impression that Shadow's story was over once he became a hero who wasn't troubled by his past hence why Forces depicts him as a villain because that's the only way they know how to implement him. Shadow seemed to have reached a dead-end for Sonic Team.

This.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Gonna go on and say I like Ian's Shadow over every incarnation post-SA2. He's powerful, but not unbeatable; he has different shades of his personality and is capable of being funny with how serious and angry he can be without it being demeaning to his character; and his broad range of potential utility is explored much greater than the games have presented.

If anything, that's the best model for Game Shadow to emulate.

[Shadowlax]

On 8/5/2017 at 8:05 PM, Cornelius Fudge said:

My issue with Shadow is that Sonic Team hasn't found a way to implement him into the modern games. In a sense, it gives me the impression that Shadow's story was over once he became a hero who wasn't troubled by his past hence why Forces depicts him as a villain because that's the only way they know how to implement him. Shadow seemed to have reached a dead-end for Sonic Team.

I don't agree , I don't think they have reached a dead end. Its just that, whatever they want to do with sonic games, isn't shadow. Which is fine, but people like shadow, so then you get well

 looks at the dumpster barge coming to shore that is sonic forces

 

I will say I didn't like hope being a maria surrugate, shit was gross. Maria was dead, he delt with it. let him do new shit, and they he did, and it was fine. While I'm not fond of the lawsuit leading to... all this, it did get rid of a lot of plot contrivances by literally ripping them out of the comics

[Dash Speed]

On 8/6/2017 at 9:43 PM, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Gonna go on and say I like Ian's Shadow over every incarnation post-SA2. He's powerful, but not unbeatable; he has different shades of his personality and is capable of being funny with how serious and angry he can be without it being demeaning to his character; and his broad range of potential utility is explored much greater than the games have presented.

If anything, that's the best model for Game Shadow to emulate.

Shadow was more angry and series in the comics than anything he's been in. The difference is between the comics and the games, Shadow looked like a joke of a generally dignified and caculating anti hero, more of a angsty teenager who hates being made fun off and a lacky to GUN. Shadow was more charismatic in the games, had a mature sense of business like professionalism, and was darker and had no need to play the straight man to someone. Comics was demeaning him to Vegeta 2.0 and even had Knuckles make fun of him.

[Flyinpenguin117]

2 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadow was more angry and series in the comics than anything he's been in. The difference is between the comics and the games, Shadow looked like a joke of a generally dignified and caculating anti hero, more of a angsty teenager who hates being made fun off and a lacky to GUN. Shadow was more charismatic in the games, had a mature sense of business like professionalism, and was darker and had no need to play the straight man to someone. Comics was demeaning him to Vegeta 2.0 and even had Knuckles make fun of him.

I feel like this is backwards...

[DonWaffleleven]

Another problem is what story could be told with Shadow. His story arc kind of ended with Sonic 06. Shadow having to deal with him being feared by G.U.N. (who didn't fear him enough to stop him from joining. Huh) and even his closest "friends" Rouge and Omega, In the end resolving to continue fighting on his own terms with his companions rather than be suckered in again like he was with Eggman or the Black Arms.

(I like Shadow's story in 06)

It kind of addressed everything left to his character. A new game with Shadow as the focus would have to either not have Shadow develop as a character and just go on a self-contained adventure or generate some new kind of threat to challenge Shadow's perceptions of the world around him. With Sonic Team's present quality of writing, I see neither expected to be happening any time ever.

[Mangoaxe5]

I had no problem with the way that Shadow was handed in the comics in both the old universe and the reboot universe.

In the old universe he only got his butt kicked when he faced opponents stronger then him such as Enerjak.

Shadow may be the ultimate lifeform but that means nothing when you're facing a god.

New reboot universe Shadow was basically the same as Sega Shadow.

You can't blame Archie/Ian for Sega's problems.

 

I will say I didn't like hope being a maria surrugate, shit was gross. Maria was dead, he delt with it. let him do new shit, and they he did, and it was fine. While I'm not fond of the lawsuit leading to... all this, it did get rid of a lot of plot contrivances by literally ripping them out of the comics

Hope and Maria are two completely difference characters with the only thing that they have in common being that they are both young blond girls and being releated to Dr. Robotnik.

They have two completely different personalitys and Hope was introduced into the comics before Sonic Adventure 2 even was released.

 

[Dash Speed]

10 hours ago, Spinneret said:

I had no problem with the way that Shadow was handed in the comics in both the old universe and the reboot universe.

In the old universe he only got his butt kicked when he faced opponents stronger then him such as Enerjak.

Shadow may be the ultimate lifeform but that means nothing when you're facing a god.

New reboot universe Shadow was basically the same as Sega Shadow.

You can't blame Archie/Ian for Sega's problems.

 

 

 

Hope and Maria are two completely difference characters with the only thing that they have in common being that they are both young blond girls and being releated to Dr. Robotnik.

They have two completely different personalitys and Hope was introduced into the comics before Sonic Adventure 2 even was released.

 

Wait, Shadow facing opponents stronger than him and winning is bad, but when it's Sonic or Knuckles it's good.

 

Last time I address Archie Shadow, but it does "feel" that the title Ultimate Lifeform is handwaved casually for him in this comic, and it shouldn't. And Shadow shouldn't go down to any god like being so easily, not because shadow fans like myself seeing him as powerful as he's hyped, But because it's simply unfair for Shadow to look weak(or even be able to lose casually) in comparison to Sonic and Knuckles who have many feats in the series beating gods or becoming gods themselves. Shadow barely has any level of superiority over powerful villains and opponents like Sonic does and he's Sonic's equal, the writer clearly gimped his strength due to fan controversy for making the main sonic trio and maybe eggman from looking bad, but they failed to make him look impressive or equally as prominent in stopping the major threats. Alot of fans seem to hate when Shadow extremely strong for some reason even though thats what he serves as one as Sonic's rivals with his mastery of chaos abilites.

Shadow's a peer of Sonic in the games and the only one close to his speed, the comics don't adhere to that from cannon. Shadow's lost too Tommy Turtle, Scourge, Knuckles daughter, and many unimportant characters (on chaos energy) he would stomp if he had more plot importance and had the same adeptness Knuckles and Sonic has with the Chaos Force. The problem here is Shadow for all his questionable character development, never felt like a force to be reckoned with and grew in his strength the more he grew as a character, he felt irrelevant and each fight showcased him just barely on Sonic's level and Knuckles, Silver grew up more and got more powerful, Shadow had to settle being hype tool for characters who Sonic has beaten before and even if Sonic loses when he fights them he comes back and beats them with barely a notch on his belt for his reputation, it's Shadow who shares the brunt of their hype in order to make them much more dangerous.

In the crossover, Shadow had to be saved by Sonic of all people from being enslaved as a Robot Master that made him look bad, and it's made out to be a casual joke on Shadow's expense. Shadow in generations had no such treatment, he wanted to fight Sonic and never in any danger like the others from the time eater, arguably Sonic team would never let Shadow be in a position where he would be captured and saved by Sonic, even if he's a boss battle.

Another point I like to address is, when is Sonic Team going to make him more like SA2 again, he's better when he's following his own moral code and doing things that he feels like doing, thusly a true anti hero with a heart of gold.

[Shadowlax]

On 8/15/2017 at 9:59 PM, DonWaffleleven said:

Another problem is what story could be told with Shadow. His story arc kind of ended with Sonic 06. Shadow having to deal with him being feared by G.U.N. (who didn't fear him enough to stop him from joining. Huh) and even his closest "friends" Rouge and Omega, In the end resolving to continue fighting on his own terms with his companions rather than be suckered in again like he was with Eggman or the Black Arms.

(I like Shadow's story in 06)

It kind of addressed everything left to his character. A new game with Shadow as the focus would have to either not have Shadow develop as a character and just go on a self-contained adventure or generate some new kind of threat to challenge Shadow's perceptions of the world around him. With Sonic Team's present quality of writing, I see neither expected to be happening any time ever.

That's a silly way too look at that. 

Just give him a new character arc, there is plenty to give him to do for his character. " his character arc is done" doesn't work for a franchise like sonic , especially shadow who you can literally just summon more aliens at any point because now that's just a story option. He's in a military organization that could betray him at any moment, not to mention new threats in general. And the mysterious of himself, he could be going through some type of mutations, new powers. The idea that his arc is done just seems, very uncreative. Epecially considering Ian gave him a new arc and enemy in the comics before it got canceled. By just introducing new aliens. 

16 hours ago, Spinneret said:

 

 

 

 

 

Hope and Maria are two completely difference characters with the only thing that they have in common being that they are both young blond girls and being releated to Dr. Robotnik.

They have two completely different personalitys and Hope was introduced into the comics before Sonic Adventure 2 even was released.

 

They can have completely different personalities, but it doesn't stop poor story telling for trying to use them in simular ways for very dumb reasons. 

[Shadowlax]

6 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Wait, Shadow facing opponents stronger than him and winning is bad, but when it's Sonic or Knuckles it's good.

 

Last time I address Archie Shadow, but it does "feel" that the title Ultimate Lifeform is handwaved casually for him in this comic, and it shouldn't. And Shadow shouldn't go down to any god like being so easily, not because shadow fans like myself seeing him as powerful as he's hyped, But because it's simply unfair for Shadow to look weak(or even be able to lose casually) in comparison to Sonic and Knuckles who have many feats in the series beating gods or becoming gods themselves. Shadow barely has any level of superiority over powerful villains and opponents like Sonic does and he's Sonic's equal, the writer clearly gimped his strength due to fan controversy for making the main sonic trio and maybe eggman from looking bad, but they failed to make him look impressive or equally as prominent in stopping the major threats. Alot of fans seem to hate when Shadow extremely strong for some reason even though thats what he serves as one as Sonic's rivals with his mastery of chaos abilites.

I don't think a lot of fans hate that, infact the opposite, power level discussion literally rises up everytime people talk about that. Yeah there are some folks who don't like the character, but their opinion don't matter much in this instance. 

6 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadow's a peer of Sonic in the games and the only one close to his speed, the comics don't adhere to that from cannon. Shadow's lost too Tommy Turtle, Scourge, Knuckles daughter, and many unimportant characters (on chaos energy) he would stomp if he had more plot importance and had the same adeptness Knuckles and Sonic has with the Chaos Force. The problem here is Shadow for all his questionable character development, never felt like a force to be reckoned with and grew in his strength the more he grew as a character, he felt irrelevant and each fight showcased him just barely on Sonic's level and Knuckles, Silver grew up more and got more powerful, Shadow had to settle being hype tool for characters who Sonic has beaten before and even if Sonic loses when he fights them he comes back and beats them with barely a notch on his belt for his reputation, it's Shadow who shares the brunt of their hype in order to make them much more dangerous.

The pre-reboot did all sorts of fuckery, and it made shadow and a myriad of characters look bad, when they reintroduced shadow, it was more about knuckles's dad than shadow. So don't take that as " its a against shadow" its more some bad writers... smelling themselves.  And yeah he did loose to some people who shouldn't have lost to, this is one of the things that changed in the post reboot. 

Shadow kicks ass in the post reboot. From the jump he strait up just beats what is essentially a final boss with no chaos emeralds by himself, and then teleport though the vastness of space to such an exact point that has to be one of the best uses of chaos control with out a chaos emerald seen ever. Along with him literally taking his inhibitor rings off, and showing what he can do, which is literally burning someone to death. 

Then he goes to angel island, fight eclipse, gets roughed up but rocks him, fights knuckles beat him up so bad knuckles had to go through an inner motivational monologue to to break shadow's choke hold. And then knuckles almost drowns in a river shadow saves him, shadow could have just let him sink after all that. And even after that, he isn't even like mad at knuckles he's like " hey man... maybe you are entirely to dedicated to this job. You can find new things to live for" and then in that same book he fights eclipse again and knuckles is astounded at the fact shadow is still fighting. Knuckles didn't have to loose to be impressed, if they would have kept fighting the implication is that shadow litterally would have outlasted him, flat out. 

He doesn't do much in the next part where knuckles and him are in the cave, and that's ok. It was knuckles's time to shine. 

6 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

In the crossover, Shadow had to be saved by Sonic of all people from being enslaved as a Robot Master that made him look bad, and it's made out to be a casual joke on Shadow's expense. Shadow in generations had no such treatment, he wanted to fight Sonic and never in any danger like the others from the time eater, arguably Sonic team would never let Shadow be in a position where he would be captured and saved by Sonic, even if he's a boss battle.

Not gonna excuse the crossovers treatment of shadow's character, especially the 2nd one. Just not great. Nothing I can say about that

Also shadow in generations is literally shadow from sonic adventure 2. He is time displaced, so that explains that. And its the current running theory about forces is that they just yanked chaos and shadow from sonic adventure 1 and 2 respectively. To which then the question is, where is the real current timeline shadow. I guess we will find out whats true in a few months. 

6 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Another point I like to address is, when is Sonic Team going to make him more like SA2 again, he's better when he's following his own moral code and doing things that he feels like doing, thusly a true anti hero with a heart of gold.

Shadow follows his own moral code now, If shadow didn't feel like gun was helping him with his goal, helping people he wouldn't be there. I like him being an anti hero, he's a more interesting character, though I wish they would loosen his connection with gun. 

[Mangoaxe5]

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 

They can have completely different personalities, but it doesn't stop poor story telling for trying to use them in simular ways for very dumb reasons. 

Fair enough if you don't like the character. You're the first person I've seen that doesn't like Hope. I remember Hope being one of the pre-reboot characters that people were actually upset about losing.

Always interesting to meet a person with a different opinion.

[Shadowlax]

6 minutes ago, Spinneret said:

Fair enough if you don't like the character. You're the first person I've seen that doesn't like Hope. I remember Hope being one of the pre-reboot characters that people were actually upset about losing.

Always interesting to meet a person with a different opinion.

Hope is fine, just not around shadow. Yes I know Hope existed before Sa2, but the way she's used as this " hey remember maria" thing is creepy. And Shadow's own game handles it better than , which is " I got over it, I don't think about maria much anymore" I rather have him deal with those problem, then just meet a new girl that reminds him of maria. And on that same end, I don't hate hope, she's fine. But she has better use than hanging around shadow being a maria surrogate. 

It was a very poorly written scenario for both characters. 

[DonWaffleleven]

9 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

That's a silly way too look at that.

(Insert Big Lebowski "your opinion" gif here)

Not so silly if even the game stories have been shying away from character arcs as of late.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On August 15, 2017 at 8:09 AM, Dash Speed said:

Shadow was more angry and series in the comics than anything he's been in. The difference is between the comics and the games, Shadow looked like a joke of a generally dignified and caculating anti hero, more of a angsty teenager who hates being made fun off and a lacky to GUN. Shadow was more charismatic in the games, had a mature sense of business like professionalism, and was darker and had no need to play the straight man to someone. Comics was demeaning him to Vegeta 2.0 and even had Knuckles make fun of him.

Uh...no he hasn't? Not in the comics--if anything it's more the opposite between the games and the comics, with the games doing so ironically. 

This honestly sounds more like you taking issue with Shadow not being as untouchable in the comics compared to the games, and I say this as a hardcore Shadow fan myself because as much as they actually do make a laugh out of Shadow's angst, the comics never forget that he's a dangerous guy to fuck with. GUN even made precautions to deal with Shadow in the event he turns against them when he, Team Dark, and a strike team of soldiers infiltrate the Second Black Comet; hell, the Black Arms even went so far as to develop a counter to Shadow and it still was no guarantee they'd bring him down despite said counter coming close to beating him, and more often than not he was far more ruthless than he was in the games post-SA2 whenever he was to carry out a task. And taking issue with Knuckles making fun of him is rather petty when plenty of other characters, even Shadow himself, have made fun of someone opposing them whenever they had a moment to do so.

The games version of Shadow has been Vegeta 2.0 in itself, and in many ways than one, although one could definitely find him boring considering how powerful he is often treated there. I like powerful characters, but that shouldn't mean they should be untouchable to all but a select few--no character should be perfect, they should have flaws and lapses in judgment and ability to make them interesting and relatable, or at the very least not boring.