Which Archie characters were good , and which were bad ?

[Gumbit]

Which Archie characters were good , and which were bad ?

[MetalSkulkBane]

Obviously depends on writer, but I think we all remember Locke, the father of the year

(Somewhat makes sense in context)

[DabigRG]

"...When you look up ""loaded question" in the dictionary...."

~Ian Flynn, 2011

3 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Obviously depends on writer, but I think we all remember Locke, the father of the year

(Somewhat makes sense in context)

I love how Lara-Le looks like a mix of Julie-Su and Lien-Da there.

To say nothing of her expression.

[E-122-Psi]

A few Archie characters felt like they got skewed absurdly between writers.

Sally in particular felt like one of those characters the writers were stuck with and tried desperately to tweak to appease the fans without quite understanding their aims. 

They also pretty much just made Fiona a fanfic level Ron the Death Eater.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Gumbit said:

Which Archie characters were good , and which were bad ?

Based on what criteria?

Because otherwise, that’s dependent on the person writing the characters. 

And I can say this much for my standard—if a writer of this franchise is able to make Big the Cat, who is commonly considered a character lacking at best and useless at worst, far more interesting and capable while maintaining the spirit of the character, then there’s no such thing as a good or bad character, but instead a poor or well written one.

[Gumbit]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Based on what criteria?

Because otherwise, that’s dependent on the person writing the characters. 

And I can say this much for my standard—if a writer of this franchise is able to make Big the Cat, who is commonly considered a character lacking at best and useless at worst, far more interesting and capable while maintaining the spirit of the character, then there’s no such thing as a good or bad character, but instead a poor or well written one.

Any standards you think , based on writing , design , concepts of the character , roles ... etc .

[Austroid]

I always thought Elias Acorn was a neat and likable character.

Going from a conflicted prince who runs away from his responsibilities, marries and starts a family with a commoner, eventually his wife convinces him to return to Knothole where he stops Sally from marrying Antoine's evil doppelganger, and becomes the new king; often going out on the front lines with the Freedom Fighters. At least his arc made sense compared to his sister's, whom I'll never really get why she's such a fan favorite; she made Sonic's apparent death after #125 about HER for pete's sake...

[Zaysho]

4 hours ago, Gumbit said:

Which Archie characters were good , and which were bad ?

Hey, I don't really see a problem with this topic, but I'd appreciate it if you offered your own insights and perspectives as well instead of repeating the thread title as that sort of thing is typically not allowed.

Also, I'm going to head things off early as ask that the discussion be civil and no one start going in on other members just because you don't agree with them--the arguments and perspectives should be the focal point, not whatever personal beef one might have with another. I know the tricks, people, so let's keep this topic decent.

[Gumbit]

51 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

Hey, I don't really see a problem with this topic, but I'd appreciate it if you offered your own insights and perspectives as well instead of repeating the thread title as that sort of thing is typically not allowed.

Also, I'm going to head things off early as ask that the discussion be civil and no one start going in on other members just because you don't agree with them--the arguments and perspectives should be the focal point, not whatever personal beef one might have with another. I know the tricks, people, so let's keep this topic decent.

Are you mistaking me with someone else ?

I don't visit this website always  , I didn't know this topic has been repeated .

The problem with me that I'm not very expressive person  like you guys , I want to hear opinions because from different , because I want improve my perceptions .

If you still think I'm kind of troll , then close the topic then , I don't want to start a war .

[DabigRG]

7 hours ago, Austroid said:

At least his arc made sense compared to his sister's, whom I'll never really get why she's such a fan favorite; she made Sonic's apparent death after #125 about HER for pete's sake...

I know it's been a while, but how? 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I want to note down my brief thoughts, but I’d argue that Mina Mongoose was one of the strongest characters that had been featured in Archie, even back during the Penders/Bollers war era. Mina entered the plot with a clear and defined arc, and one that told a pretty strong story as well compared to a lot of the contrived nonsense we got later, especially with Penders’ cast.

Mina’s story starts on a depressing note with her being shown as a direct consequence of the actions of Eggman’s return to power after Endgame, with her mother being roboticised and Mina soon falling to the point where she wishes to be roboticised too because at least she’d be with her mother then. It brings up an interesting idea for the series because before this point, even the more comic relief characters in earlier issues were rising up and training  to help the effort, and now here was this poor defenceless teenager who lost everything and believed giving her life up to be with her family was better than being without anything. In essence, Mina had given up.

Then Sonic steps into the picture to save her, not only giving her the courage to fight, but giving her something she desperately needed - someone to relate to, because Sonic lost both of his parents to Eggman early in his life, and lost Chuck shortly after. This is great because it shows Sonic giving someone else inspiration and the will to fight based off his own personality and experiences.

Mina’s arc continues from there though, and in more interesting ways, because it still veers into territory we hadn’t seen yet. Mina was the first character I can really think of that was established to be in something of a bad relationship with the Freedom Fighters, more specifically the fact that despite having super speed, she just isn’t capable to fight in wars against Eggman. She has no tactical or fighting knowledge and that affects her, she feels useless to the war effort.

On top of that, due to Sonic being the only one she can relate to, she ends up developing a crush on him that was doomed to fail because of his feelings towards Sally. This led to the biggest lessons of her arc, because she forcefully tried to change herself for Sonic, to doing things she wasn’t capable of doing, and in the end, it caused heartbreak after heartbreak for her. To the point that she nearly got herself killed to save Sally from a gunshot from Nack because she cared more for Sonic being happy than her own life and happiness.

But then she continues getting better as a person and working through her own issues once she accepts that Sonic doesn’t feel the same way to her, and she continues to be better. She learns to grow from her own strengths and personality instead of just changing to satisfy another. She doesn’t go out on Freedom Fighter missions, but she uses her natural singing talents to become a pop star and to provide inspiration to those who can fight, the same way Sonic gave her inspiration to keep fighting when she originally escaped Eggman’s grasp. She got a new boyfriend who loves her for who she is, and doesn’t want her to change.

Even after her original arc, she continued to be pretty interesting because of her ties to Mammoth Mogul and especially when it’s revealed she’s suffering from PTSD from the Iron Dominion invasion and her fear, paranoia and PTSD is manipulated by Naugus to spread distrust and hatred of Nicole amongst New Metropolis, which I was happy to see resolved before the end of the continuity.

I think the particular strength about Mina is despite the original concept for a new love interest for Sonic, or a love triangle with Sally, or whatever, Mina seemed like someone who was meant to be a riskier character in terms of arcs. She isn’t like Amy or Tails, kids who are capable of running out and doing field ops, she’s got a bundle of personal issues and insecurities developed by all of the shit Eggman has done to the world, and her family, and even when she’s technically rescued, her character continues to develop in a realistic way. It’s a really strong arc of learning how to grow, be comfortable in your own skin, moving over insecurities, and how to aid others in different ways, even if you aren’t quite as capable to directly fight.

Honestly. I think one of the few times Mina was badly portrayed that I can remember was in the godawful Issue 150, which ironically was the one and only time Penders got his hands on writing her, in which case he regressed her character and development to the point she considered cheating on Ash with Evil Sonic, who she believed was the real Sonic. She doesn’t do it, but the fact she was tempted is really bad given this was at the tail end of her original arc. Thankfully, given how awful the whole issue is in general, you can consider it non canon and ignore it.

[Your Vest Friend]

Reading through that entire arc summary made me realise...how Mina would not be possible in any other circumstance aside from the one that pre-reboot Sonic let itself get into. 

Like, the whole thrust of her arc is her being unable to fight the big fight against Eggman, whereas in games anyone can do it. Stands in direct contrast to the likes of Cream, Charmy (who aside from flight are pretty much regular children) and Tangle, who'd I'd say is Mina's antithesis in terms of concept. 

[Multikaris]

6 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I want to note down my brief thoughts, but I’d argue that Mina Mongoose was one of the strongest characters that had been featured in Archie, even back during the Penders/Bollers war era. Mina entered the plot with a clear and defined arc, and one that told a pretty strong story as well compared to a lot of the contrived nonsense we got later, especially with Penders’ cast.

Mina’s story starts on a depressing note with her being shown as a direct consequence of the actions of Eggman’s return to power after Endgame, with her mother being roboticised and Mina soon falling to the point where she wishes to be roboticised too because at least she’s be with her mother then. It brings up an interesting idea for the series because before this point, even the more comic relief characters in earlier issues were rising up and training for to help the effort, and now Here was this poor defenceless teenager who lost everything and believed giving her life up to be with her family was better than being without anything. In essence, Mina had given up.

Then Sonic steps into the picture to save her, not only giving her the courage to fight, but giving her something she desperately needed - someone to relate to, because Sonic lost both of his parents to Eggman early in his life, and lost Chuck shortly after. This is great because it shows Sonic giving someone else inspiration and the will to fight based off his own personality and experiences.

Mina’s arc continues from there though, and in more interesting ways, because it still veers into teroritory we hadn’t seen yet. Mina was the first character I can really think of that was established to be in something of a bad relationship with the Freedom Fighters, more specifically the fact that despite having super speed, she just isn’t capable to fight in wars against Eggman. She has no tactical or fighting knowledge and that affects her, she feels useless to the war effort.

On top of that, due to Sonic being the only one she can relate to, she ends up developing a crush on him that was doomed to fail because of his feelings towards Sally. This led to the biggest lessons of her arc, because she forcefully tried to change herself for Sonic, to doing things she wasn’t capable of doing, and in the end, it caused heartbreak after heartbreak for her. To the point that she nearly got herself killed to save Sally from a gunshot from Nack because she cared more for Sonic being happy than her own life and happiness.

But then she continues getting better as a person and working through her own issues once she accepts that Sonic doesn’t feel the same way to her, and she continues to be better. She learns to grow from her own strengths and personality instead of just changing to satisfy another. She doesn’t go out on Freedom Fighter missions, but she uses her natural singing talents to become a pop star and to provide inspiration to those who can fight, the same way Sonic gave her inspiration to keep fighting when she originally escaped Eggman’s grasp. She got a new boyfriend who loves her for who she is, and doesn’t want her to change.

Even after her original arc, she continued to be pretty interesting because of her ties to Mannoth Mogul and especially when it’s revealed she’s suffering from PTSD from the Iron Dominion invasion and her fear, paranoia and PTSD is manipulated by Naugus to spread distrust and hatred of Nicole amongst New Metropolis, which I was happy to see resolved before the end of the continuity.

I think the particular strength about Mina is despite the original concept for a new love interest for Sonic, or a love triangle with Sally, or whatever, Mina seemed like someone who was meant to be a riskier character in terms of arcs. She isn’t like Amy or Tails, kids who are capable of running out and doing field ops, she’s got a bundle of personal issues and insecurities developed by all of the shit Eggman has done to the world, and her family, and even when she’s technically rescued, her character continues to develop in a realistic way. It’s a really strong arc of learning how to grow, be comfortable in your own skin, moving over insecurities, and how to aid others in different ways, even if you aren’t quite as capable to directly fight.

Honestly. I think one of the few times Mina was badly portrayed that I can remember was in the godawful Issue 150, which ironically was the one and only time Penders got his hands on writing her, in which case he regressed her character and development to the point she considered cheating on Ash with Evil Sonic, who she believed was the real Sonic. She doesn’t do it, but the fact she was tempted is really bad given this was at the tail end of her original arc. Thankfully, given how awful the whole issue is in general, you can consider it non canon and ignore it.

Yeah, a lot of the stuff around Robo-Robotnik’s return had that sort of focus. Suddenly, Roboticization was scarier than ever. The reveal of the cure actually made things a lot worse; there were still a number who weren’t, such as the dragons due to being too far underground... how ineffective were the BEM in the end? How many more might be lurking under the earth, or in the sea, or in orbit, or in other dimensions? In fact, at least a few of them were damaged to the point where restoration was impossible, and died as machines. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

18 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Reading through that entire arc summary made me realise...how Mina would not be possible in any other circumstance aside from the one that pre-reboot Sonic let itself get into. 

Like, the whole thrust of her arc is her being unable to fight the big fight against Eggman, whereas in games anyone can do it. Stands in direct contrast to the likes of Cream, Charmy (who aside from flight are pretty much regular children) and Tangle, who'd I'd say is Mina's antithesis in terms of concept. 

To be honest, that's a big reason why I like the arc so much, unlike a lot of the unrelated bullshit that Penders and even Bollers developed, Mina's arc actually felt set-up to subvert the usual ridiculousness of Sonic's world, where someone who's got the same abilities as Sonic isn't really capable of fighting, just because she has those abilities, where on the other hand - during the era she was created - you had eight year olds running out to battle death robots. Mina's arc is interesting due to it's subverted nature, the universe in which it happens, and just in general how good it is.

[Zaysho]

11 hours ago, Gumbit said:

Are you mistaking me with someone else ?

I don't visit this website always  , I didn't know this topic has been repeated .

The problem with me that I'm not very expressive person  like you guys , I want to hear opinions because from different , because I want improve my perceptions .

If you still think I'm kind of troll , then close the topic then , I don't want to start a war .

I didn't say any of that? That was a general warning for everyone because topics about characters, and the comics in particular, get overly heated and personal. I'm fine with the topic being open, and if you want to use it as a means of developing your own opinions, that's fine as well. You should, however, open a topic with something more than just "what do you think?" since it will actually encourage discussion.

My goal was to head off members that I already know can't conduct themselves properly without losing their heads when they see someone they don't like has posted and derail the topic over it.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I want to note down my brief thoughts, but I’d argue that Mina Mongoose was one of the strongest characters that had been featured in Archie, even back during the Penders/Bollers war era. Mina entered the plot with a clear and defined arc, and one that told a pretty strong story as well compared to a lot of the contrived nonsense we got later, especially with Penders’ cast.

 

Holy crap...

You know, I don't think I really thought about Mina and her time in the comic all that much despite how prominent and developed she was.

What' also funny is that for as popular as she was, there was a brief point and time where I saw a select comment or two and/or wondered if she technically counted as a Creator's Pet/Mary Sue--albeit, one that was fairly reigned in and well liked by fans.

1 hour ago, VEDJ-F said:

Reading through that entire arc summary made me realise...how Mina would not be possible in any other circumstance aside from the one that pre-reboot Sonic let itself get into. 

Like, the whole thrust of her arc is her being unable to fight the big fight against Eggman, whereas in games anyone can do it. Stands in direct contrast to the likes of Cream, Charmy (who aside from flight are pretty much regular children) and Tangle, who'd I'd say is Mina's antithesis in terms of concept. 

Yeah, seriously.

Even Tangle's civilian status is way past informed, especially where out of universe matters are concerned.

[Kellodrawsalot]

I was going to write Sally and Bunnie but..technically there Satam-characters not Archie, Sally-post reboot was best Sally. Honestly Archie Sally was often treated poor because it was pretty obvious two of the biggest writers weren't fans of her. (Ken Penders believed she made Sonic look uncool and that she could be replaced with his Elias, Boilers wrote her to be the most selfish character out of the entire comic just so he could write her out of the comic so he could write Sonic and Amy becoming a couple since that was populair then sonally.)

Most characters I liked are from the post reboot 

Cave and Casia were pretty awesome and I really liked that sister-bond that they have and I really wished we saw a conclusion to their story and struggle.

I also really liked Thunderbolt she was just amusing and hilarious, like an Evil-Amy but done right.

Post Reboot also had Relic which a nerdy girl which I thought was great foil for Knuckles, and despite some of his issues I also enjoyed Shade. 

Gold was also pretty cool. Honestly its a huge shame the Post Reboot characters had such a short time to shine.

as for the worst well, there is Locke and I never cared much for Elias. (he didnt really have much of a character to him? its just he's a male Sally and is mostly used as a object to drive a plot) I also found it pretty distasteful that Penders believed they could have gotten rid of Sally with replacing her with Elias, Then there are many many Penders-Echidna characters that just really lack a drive or personality ,with the exception of Lien-Da and Julie Su. But even Julie-Su gotten worse only a few years after she was introduced in the comic books only for her to become Knuckles's arm candy.

Geoffrey was an all-time creep, Fiona was just a background character without much to do but even with her -side-heel turn she just sort of felt forced or a poor attempt to make her into a legit character. Scouge was generally just annoying. A lot of the issues with these characters are honestly their lack of distquint personality and terrible boring design , I guess Mina Mongoose was one of the rare-better archie characters out there but I do felt it was quite annoying that with her popularity rising she was shoved into almost every issue and Sonic became sort of a romance-drama, its a shame that one of Archie's best character was a huge driving force for Penders and Boilers to dump more drama and love triangles into the comic. But if I had to choose the worst character

that honor goes to

This stupid thing.

[Dr. Detective]

Some of the Archie characters I hated out of frustration from how "in the way" I personally felt they were concerning who I personally wanted the focus to be on. Whether I liked them or not was dictated by how well their dynamics with the others felt to me. My opinion on them stayed mostly the same throughout the books run.

The few characters where a change for the positive happened, I can count on one hand... which was Geoffery. I didn't care about him before his reveal as a henchman for Naugus and then suddenly I was all about him. Dude went from "who cares" to "when is he coming back" so fast for me when that took place. Same goes for Thrash. Didn't care when he was a hero, loved it when he became a villain.

I loved the Post-Reboot Egg Bosses. All of them. It's a crying shame that they're all gone now. I always really like Ian's villains. Dr. Finitevus was a delight whenever he showed himself. Mammoth Mogul was a brilliantly written character. Regina and the Iron King were delightful Power Rangers villains. I even liked Eclipse for what he was.

As for his hero characters, those tend to be way too boring or uninteresting for me to get behind. If I had to choose, I actually liked Harvey Hoo quite a bit. Probably because he was leading a faction of people that felt like an acceptable off-shoot from the Acorn Kingdom that I could see existing in some way in the normal Sonic universe. And Silver bumblefucking his way into being apart of it and having to wear a silly outfit to do it felt right. Other than him, I've got nothing as far as the hero characters both pre and post reboot. None of them did anything for me.

As far as characters I hate... well, there were a lot. Some of them not even comic exclusives, like Mighty. Wasn't a fan of Sally, at all. I chilled out on her as time went on since the romance shit was petering out and eventually non-existent. Instead of infuriating, she just became bland. 

However, as far as a character I hated and later on hated EVEN MORE, that honor goes to Julie-Su. I thought she had a shit personality from the get-go and the more I found out about her, the more I hated her and the idea around her. It doesn't help that Mr. Penderp is out there touting the spawn of her and Knuckles' union as some sort of advertisement, pin-up girl for a series that doesn't exist. 

 

4 hours ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

But if I had to choose the worst character

that honor goes to

This stupid thing.

You know, I've always heard of the legendary hatred for this character. Even Ian himself mentioned killing him off because of how awful a character he was.

However, literally the only story I read of his that held any significance for his character was the one where he was killed off... and that was a really great story. So, I don't know anything about why people hate him so much, ironically. 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

41 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

However, literally the only story I read of his that held any significance for his character was the one where he was killed off... and that was a really great story. So, I don't know anything about why people hate him so much, ironically. 

If I recall correctly, he's one of the biggest Gary Su characters to have ever existed in the comics.

[Multikaris]

Admittedly Tommy Turtle and Hamlin Pig were quite unsufferable. Many other characters had very hideous designs that did not fit with Sonic at all (same thing happened in Fleetway to an even greater extent), and clashed very badly.

[DabigRG]

See, there's a couple of things with discerning between assigning either label

• A character that can be deemed bad under one writer can be good under another with enough work
• There are so many characters to pick from that you'd have to actively check off a carefully thought out list
• I actually find a number of characters kinda neat or cool for whatever reason
• The afformentioned lack of easily reliable ranking criteria

I guess it comes down to any mix of what one personally prefers and/or enjoyed as well as what can generally be seen as acceptable/tolerable. Which, given how mixed base Sonic alone is, can be a number of things.

[Austroid]

13 hours ago, DabigRG said:

I know it's been a while, but how? 

On the infamous slap page of #134 she goes on about how her heart was broken believing he was dead, watching him get beat up by Mecha brought it all back to her, and that she refused to have her heart broken again. All after calling him selfish for wanting to risk his life fighting, over ruling the kingdom alongside her.

Like... wow.

[Sega DogTagz]

3 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Admittedly Tommy Turtle and Hamlin Pig were quite unsufferable.

Y'know, Hamlin was insufferable, but at the end of the day I like what they did with him on the council of Acorn. He was downright bitter and resentful about getting the short end of the straw as a Freedom Fighter, and he kind of took it out on the rest of the crew by being the legal thorn in the side and better represented the limitation playing within the rules has on characters like Sonic.

Sonic does what is "right", even before what is "good". By contrasting him with a cast of characters like Hamlin, we got more stories where we could accurately depict that part of Sonic.

 

He was kind of like a necessary evil.

[Kellodrawsalot]

3 hours ago, Austroid said:

On the infamous slap page of #134 she goes on about how her heart was broken believing he was dead, watching him get beat up by Mecha brought it all back to her, and that she refused to have her heart broken again. All after calling him selfish for wanting to risk his life fighting, over ruling the kingdom alongside her.

Like... wow.

You do have to know that was written by Karl Boilers , because hé wanted to write Sonic and Amy getting together, hé on purpose wrote Sally this bad do that the fans disliked her so they be okay with Sally leaving the freedom fighters for a while and Sonic being in a secret relationship with Amy. Amy who was 10 years old in the comic....

[MetalSkulkBane]

9 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

<Tommy Turtle>

You know, I've always heard of the legendary hatred for this character. Even Ian himself mentioned killing him off because of how awful a character he was.

However, literally the only story I read of his that held any significance for his character was the one where he was killed off... and that was a really great story. So, I don't know anything about why people hate him so much, ironically. 

 

I kiiiinda hate the dude for simple reason.

He's boring. Most generic Sonic character possible. Name, design, personality, story. I don't believe in bad characters. Bad characters can be good under competent writer (see Geoffrey under Flynn). But Tommy is just useless. There is nothing to work with.

Which is exactly why Chacon decided she needs to bring him back from the dead and make him member of Freedom Fighters.

It's just... baffling. "hate" is probably too strong of a word. I just find him most worthless Sonic character in existence.

Edit: Also, his debut is beyond clever adaptation of "Turtle and the Hare" story. Seriously? Even in 1991 they knew it's not clever.