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Missed opportunities in Worlds Collide/Unite?


Perkilator

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Just as the title says. For me:

Worlds Collide

-No Cream Woman or Big Man. We had ten roboticized masters already, I don’t think two more could’ve hurt.

-I thought Rock would’ve been easy for comparisons to Omega regarding multiple weapons at once.

-Knuckles doesn’t compare Stone Man to the Sandopolis Guardian.

-Sonic has no PTSD of previous Sonic water levels from seeing Bubble Man.

-When Rock fights Bass, Mega Man & Bass isn’t mentioned (or is it?).

Worlds Unite

-Rock and Axl don’t get on to each other about the differences in their copying technologies.

-Boom Sonic should’ve joined Sticks and the others.

-More of a continuity nitpick, but Orbot and Cubot never appear after the first two issues. Neither the Post-SGW nor the Boom versions.

-Shadow is introduced in a single panel and then killed off a panel later. I think he could’ve used Chaos Control to get at least someone out before the explosion but naaah!

-Sonic’s Werehog Curse is mentioned in Issue 2, yet it never physically appears. I think Sonic going to something like Nightopia would’ve been a cool place to use it in the crossover.

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"Cream Woman is a baaad thing to put out there."

Omega's just suddenly there in World's Collide to begin with.

World's Unite was just a greedy clusterfuck that got out of hand to begin with.

Team Dark, the President(did he ever get a name?), and Amanda Tower were indeed effectively killed there. This was part of a editorial mandate where at least one character needed to die to show how high the stakes were. Which is why Mr. Flynn chose them.

As for BoomSonic, I think there was a mandate against any main character but Sticks crossing between continuities.

Fair point about the Werehog and Axl.

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1 hour ago, Perkilator said:

-No Cream Woman or Big Man. We had ten roboticized masters already, I don’t think two more could’ve hurt.

I disagree. I honestly thought they stretched a bit to fit Silver and Blaze in where they did. They barely even had any time to introduce Omega, who had to be shuffled in towards the end. 

As for missed opportunities... honestly, I'd leave World's Collide as it is. I wouldn't even mind seeing it used as a basis for an actual Sonic and Mega-Man crossover game. Maybe then they could expand on things that they weren't able to in the 12 issues they had.

World's Unite, however, could have done with being good... for one. 

Even trying to imagine it happening in a game gives me a bit of a headache. There's just way too much there. The issues really did just boil down to "REMEMBER THEM?!" and the fact that I played so little (almost none) of the games from both SEGA and Capcom represented there meant I didn't remember them. The only ones I was sort of familiar with I knew through cultural osmosis or from playing the SEGA All-Stars games.

Then, at the end, Sigma ended up being just a big flat-line. I don't even remember how they beat him. I just remember it being super quick. 

 

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1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

Then, at the end, Sigma ended up being just a big flat-line. I don't even remember how they beat him. I just remember it being super quick. 

 

I don't remember either, now that you mention. 

I do remember Super X being veto'd though.

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Worlds Unite’s inconsistent logic with Mavericks. Why is Techno there, if Repliforce, Red Alert, etc aren’t? They were way worse. Also, it would have been cool to have post-Sigma Mavericks, like X8’s Lumine, the CM Mavericks, even the villains from Zero and ZX. Sonic characters being turned into Mavericks is also sorely missed. 

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I wish they'd made the second half of Unite about gathering the Unified Army. I actually don't think the idea of bringing in the other Sega and Capcom properties was bad (you have to escalate a sequel after all) but they didn't get a lot of time to do anything. 

I kinda think they didn't need to be 12 issues because the second half of both felt like padding. 

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I mean  alot of shit in worlds unite was a missed opportunity.

But I'm biased so Shadow and Team Dying.

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2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I disagree. I honestly thought they stretched a bit to fit Silver and Blaze in where they did. They barely even had any time to introduce Omega, who had to be shuffled in towards the end. 

As for missed opportunities... honestly, I'd leave World's Collide as it is. I wouldn't even mind seeing it used as a basis for an actual Sonic and Mega-Man crossover game. Maybe then they could expand on things that they weren't able to in the 12 issues they had.

World's Unite, however, could have done with being good... for one. 

Even trying to imagine it happening in a game gives me a bit of a headache. There's just way too much there. The issues really did just boil down to "REMEMBER THEM?!" and the fact that I played so little (almost none) of the games from both SEGA and Capcom represented there meant I didn't remember them. The only ones I was sort of familiar with I knew through cultural osmosis or from playing the SEGA All-Stars games.

Then, at the end, Sigma ended up being just a big flat-line. I don't even remember how they beat him. I just remember it being super quick. 

 

Collide was pretty solid. It kept things small when it needed to be and then large when it needed to be. I'd change a few things like Tails being punched out like a punk bitch. I didn't mind him getting captured but man that was lame. As well as I'd probably have liked the brawl of Mega Man and Sonic to go on longer. That's about all I can think of without getting too biased.

Worlds Unite on the other hand was just bad. It had too much going on and not enough time to make it all work. Was big for the sake of it and that size utterly crippled the story. You'd have to change so much for it to be just good or solid. It's not even what I think is passable. One of my grievances was just how Sonic and Mega Man just chode everyone. I loved the idea of opposite universes uniting together to stop the robotized/altered Sonic and Mega Man...but damn I thought that what a little much. Especially when it just ends not because the other universes found a way to save the heroes, but because the doctors knew the trouble that was Sigma...thought that was lame. Gave me the Forces feel of UNITE...except not really cause you all suck except for like 2 or 3 people....

Oh and Sigma was beaten I think by the Super Mega Man and Sonic....and at first they made it seem like Sigma was powerful and a challenge when he powered up, but then got dominated real quick so that tension deflated like a balloon.

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1 hour ago, dbzfan7 said:

 I'd change a few things like Tails being punched out like a punk bitch.

I'd keep that the same. If only because I thought it was funny.

I'm gonna have to re-read World's Unite one of these days because I swear to God I don't remember them saying Shadow and his team died. I must have missed it because people keep talking about it and I'm drawing a blank.

So much of that event is just a blur. They tried to fit so much shit into it that I can barely-HOLY FUCK! THEY INTRODUCED THE DEADLY SIX IN WORLD'S UNITE TOO! 

I totally fucking forgot they did that! 

WHY?!

You think that's ENOUGH characters????!!!!

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10 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'd keep that the same. If only because I thought it was funny.

I'm gonna have to re-read World's Unite one of these days because I swear to God I don't remember them saying Shadow and his team died. I must have missed it because people keep talking about it and I'm drawing a blank.

So much of that event is just a blur. They tried to fit so much shit into it that I can barely-HOLY FUCK! THEY INTRODUCED THE DEADLY SIX IN WORLD'S UNITE TOO! 

I totally fucking forgot they did that! 

WHY?!

You think that's ENOUGH characters????!!!!

The White House and Amanda's ship merged during the Worlds' uniting and then exploded with no sign of any of them afterwards. It's only after the reset that Sonic calls up Shadow due to vaguely recalling losing him. 

And yes, the Deadly Six were there. Partly because I think they were setting up the road to a eventual Lost World arc before the sequel was decided upon. But mainly because Lyric was embargoed. 

14 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

Collide was pretty solid. It kept things small when it needed to be and then large when it needed to be. I'd change a few things like Tails being punched out like a punk bitch. I didn't mind him getting captured but man that was lame. As well as I'd probably have liked the brawl of Mega Man and Sonic to go on longer. That's about all I can think of without getting too biased.

....

.

When was this BTW? 

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Yo if they had to kill characters why didn't they kill the ff. Would have preferred they had more game characters hang out in the crossover

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1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

Yo if they had to kill characters why didn't they kill the ff. Much would have had more game characters hang out in the crossover

It's petty of me to say this but I probably would have gotten a kick out of hearing that the Freedom Fighters died. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Yo if they had to kill characters why didn't they kill the ff. Much would have had more game characters hang out in the crossover

Because people asked for them in World's Collide apparently to begin with. 

Plus he likely didn't have any place for Team Dark otherwise with...well, it's Worlds Unite. 

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14 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It's petty of me to say this but I probably would have gotten a kick out of hearing that the Freedom Fighters died. 

 

...you aren't alone.

As adventure fan that shit summed up my entire interaction with the comic books for a good long time. The characters I like taking back seats to characters I do not care for.

13 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Because people asked for them in World's Collide apparently to begin with. 

Plus he likely didn't have any place for them otherwise with...well, it's Worlds Unite. 

If I am to be so bold, those people should have been ignored. Like yo it's a video game crossover where a bunch of the sonic game characters don't show up. And one the most popular ones, the one you teased to fight zero, dies. But don't worry,  here's characters from a cartoon a good chunk of the audience didn't watch

Oh i'm so happy the new book is mostly game characters. Oh I'm so glad the sales of these new books are reflecting that.

 

I'm sorry if I sound salty. I was hype and the entire event turned out trash, and and murdered my favorite character.

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5 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

If I am to be so bold, those people should have been ignored. Like yo it's a video game crossover where a bunch of the sonic game characters don't show up. And one the most popular ones, the one you teased to fight zero, dies. But don't worry,  here's characters from a cartoon a good chunk of the audience didn't watch

I mean it introduced Gemerl into comics, so...idk what to say. It's been so long too. 

Did they really tease that, btw? 

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1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

...you aren't alone.

As adventure fan that shit summed up my entire interaction with the comic books for a good long time. The characters I like taking back seats to characters I do not care for.

Oh dude, that's my experience trying to fully get into Archie in a nut-shell right there. 

I tried my best but ultimately I was set in the ways of caring about who I knew from Adventure 2 and Heroes. 

I didn't watch SatAM growing up. I saw two episodes of AoSth as a kid and years later caught Sonic X on TV by happenstance. I didn't care about Sally and the Acorn Kingdom. Trying to care was an incredibly futile effort on my part.

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1 minute ago, DabigRG said:

I mean it introduced Gemerl into comics, so...idk what to say. It's been so long too

Hey man if you got some joy out it, do you. Can you blame me for not being fond of it? I'm not furiously  angry , raging or yelling at the ceiling for gods to tell me what I have done to deserved to be cursed. It just kinda sucked and I wanna talk about it and be sassy about it.

1 minute ago, DabigRG said:

Did they really tease that, btw? 

Yes? No? On the poster Shadow and Zero are fucking flying at each other and I literally got way more hype for the archie comic than I had ever been.

That's like edgelord heavyweight championship match, the only way it could have gotten better, is if vergil showed up.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Oh dude, that's my experience trying to fully get into Archie in a nut-shell right there. 

I tried my best but ultimately I was set in the ways of caring about who I knew from Adventure 2 and Heroes. 

I didn't watch SatAM growing up. I saw two episodes of AoSth as a kid and years later caught Sonic X on TV by happenstance. I didn't care about Sally and the Acorn Kingdom. Trying to care was an incredibly futile effort on my part.

I tried myself. And I ended up liking Bunny and Antione, though that was because of flynn. but for the most part, I genuinely think with all of them gone, all of the characters from DiC and the pre-boot characters being gone, all in all for the most part nothing of value you was lost. To me , most of those characters never represented what I though or think sonic is. So imagine, reading worlds unite , and your favorite character is literally fucking dead and people you don't care about are participating in this crossover. Sufficied to say, I was uh... not pleased. But then is then and now is now. And hopefully they make better crossover decision in the future.

This isn't an admonishment of the people who like those characters. If you do, cool that's chill. I just always felt like the comics often pushed the characters I liked in the back, or in the case of rouge even under ian's pen for a while characterized them in a way to fit a status quo I gave no shit about.

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1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

Like yo it's a video game crossover where a bunch of the sonic game characters don't show up.

No it isn't.

It's a comic book crossover. It takes place in the comic book continuity. It was, in fact, sold and marketed specifically as being different from the first crossover because it was going to be disrupting an already drawn out story arc.

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

So imagine, reading worlds unite , and your favorite character is literally fucking dead and people you don't care about are participating in this crossover.


I'm not saying Team Dark getting killed off wasn't shitty, because I was pretty pissed that they didn't come back until everything was magically reset at the end, but I can't wrap my head around how it's somehow the Freedom Fighters' fault Shadow dies and not all the unrelated IP (that were used to sell this garbage) cluttering the last third of the comic and had no impact on the story. Whether you like the DiC characters or not, it's simply not true they were the reason x Sonic game character was sidelined. But hey, look, Chun-li kicks Sigma--worth it

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To add on to that:

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 But don't worry,  here's characters from a cartoon a good chunk of the audience didn't watch

Or, as it actually was: Here's characters who have always been from the comic you're reading, more or less fulfilling the roles they normally do, in this multi-IP crossover with the comic you're reading.

 

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Worlds Unite:

-Have act two be about gathering the Unified Army.

-Put in some exploration of the unified world. A literal mish-mash of Sonic and Mega Man’s worlds and we spend most of the story hovering above it.

-Leave out the Deadly Six.

-This one may be waaaay too much to ask but: extend it. 12 issues really wasn’t even close to being enough for this thing: it could’ve used a fourth act. Or at the very least scrap the Worlds Unite Battles specials and replace them with something a bit more meaningful.

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OK I take away my statement that was originally here. I still agree with it, but I feel like this argument is going no where. If yall feel like the game IP the reason the comic exists isn't more important in situations like this and my statements suggesting this are somehow blaming the characters. I'm not I'm blaming bad decision making. Im not even making the correlation that the ff's inclusion was at the exclusion of other game characters. But rather apart of a series of bad decisiona. But that's cool, you are gonna believe that. I don't think there's much of a logic there ian Flynn has spoken on it himself. But hey do you and have a good one. I do not wish to delve down into this topic again. And I don't think I need too, IDW exists so...not much else I can say really

 

Have a good one

I think there are more productive ways to address my issues with world unite

 

 

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4 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I'm not I'm blaming bad decision making. Im not even making the correlation that the ff's inclusion was at the exclusion of other game characters. But rather apart of a series of bad decisiona.

"Worlds Unite" has many problems, but my issue, which seems to sail right over your head, is you acting like including characters already part of the comic's ongoing narrative (which "Worlds Unite" was advertised as being a part of unlike "Worlds Collide") is part of the problem. This really has nothing to do with preference, I just think your stance is misinformed and ignores that the crossover's shortcomings stem from things that had nothing to do with the ongoing comics that were already crossing over. Never mind you made it abundantly clear that those characters should have been given the axe in favor of others already.

13 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Yo if they had to kill characters why didn't they kill the ff. Would have preferred they had more game characters hang out in the crossover

But whatever, "do you" I guess.

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I won't talk much about Worlds Collide, because I think it's one of the best storylines Archie Sonic had, but Worlds Unite. Hoo Boy. 

First things first, I think it's really important to state something - I think at the start - the story arc started really strongly. It addressed the major issue people had with the original story - that out of nowhere, it forcefully interrupts both comics' ongoing storylines to tell the crossover - even worse in Sonic's case since it ruined the conclusion of the Mecha Sally arc, which would've been oh so nice to have seen before the comic had to go in for forced rebooting. Mega Man on the other hand also had one of the biggest game-changer arcs in it's history interrupted (Ra Moon), and especially in MM's case, it was forgotten as soon as it was done.

So, Worlds Unite IMO made the absolute right call allowing the Freedom Fighters to shine this time around. In my opinion, the main cast, bar Cream and Big already had Worlds Collide to themselves, so getting the FF involved, as well as more of the original Archie MM cast was the best call in my opinion, helped by having Sigma and the Deadly Six as the main villains this time around, who had the potential to be really strong. 

Even the first part of the story was extremely strong, giving a lot of the elements that I wanted out of this crossover. The art was done by a guest artist, but this guest artist actually did a great job with the art style. Eggman and Wily were back together for a second round, and on top of that - were forced to join up with the heroes because Sigma was a bigger threat. Sonic Man and M'Egga Man was one of the coolest fights in the whole series on either side, and both were one of the biggest examples of how insanely cool this crossover was. Perfect blend of Sonic/Mega Man. Loved how Sonic took Wily's design style, while Mega Man took Eggman's. The X cast was also brought in magnificently as well, and the small story in MM 50 where Rock and X meet for the first time is nothing short of wonderful. 

Aaaaaaaaand then it all goes plummeting down from there.

I legitimately don't know how they managed to ruin the story within the span of an issue or so, but they did it. Part 5 of the arc showed a stark contrast from before. The new guest artist was frankly - awful. His art was off-model, and dull as hell. The entire story ditches the super-cool idea that the first arc of the story displayed, immediately running into ridiculous ways to rehash the first Worlds Collide. "Oh right, we had Sonic and Mega Man casts fighting each other, what do we do?" "Oh uh the deadly six mind control them". "Worlds Collide had this big place where Eggman/Wily rule" "oh uh sigma has an empty battlefield". 

It just tries to do what WC did, but worse. Worlds Collide had a consistent goal in every single arc included in that storyline. Arc 1 - Sonic and Mega Man believe they should be fighting each other. Arc 2 - The newly joined up Sonic/Mega Man has to explore Eggman and Wily's twisted pocket dimension, track the Robotised Masters, and deal with threats on the way. Arc 3 is a downright war to get inside the Wily Egg, save Dr. Light, and stop Eggman & Wily before they can use the SGW to achieve godhood. 

In Worlds Unite...the whole middle portion is just fighting. First it's the Deadly Six, then it's Mega Man cast, then it's Sigma, then it's the mavericks, etc. In the meantime, Sticks (who's a whole other problem) is running around recruiting different characters for later. 

And while we're at it, let's talk about Sticks. She shouldn't be in this story. She honestly felt really shoehorned in, as if Archie just wanted to desperately tie Boom's comic into the whole mix. So the end result is not only did Boom's heavily limited run lose about 3 issues to the crossover, only Sticks got to be included, despite how insanely fun it would've been to see all of the Boom cast come through and interact with their main counterparts, especially Knuckles. Mega Man already had X as a counterpart, so it felt "set" that Boom would be Sonic's counterpart, only for it not to happen, bar Sticks hopping in for no real reason. Her whole role could've been done by someone else, like Silver - who'd already been tracking the Genesis Portals.

The biggest issue of Worlds Unite to me, easily - is it's just completely quantity over quality. It makes illogical and bad decisions to try raise the stakes from the last crossover, and it doesn't work. Shadow and co die for no reason, other than "a main character has to die even though it's obvious they aren't", a shit ton of SEGA and Capcom characters are just shoehorned into the story at the complete eleventh hour for a fight that lasts one issue, and doesn't even have any banter (Literally a full issue of pictures with little to no words), and so much more.

It tries to take everything Worlds Collide did, and just makes it hollow. Worlds Collide had Sonic and Mega Man tricked, and at odds, thinking the other was a bad guy - this time Mega Man and his cast are just forcefully controlled by the Deadly Six. The Deadly Six has the potential to be good villains, but they're just immediately turned into zombies by Sigma and his armour, making them boring.

The biggest example to me though just has to easily be the Mavericks. Because good fuck did they mess this up. The robot master war in Worlds Collide was one of the best parts of the whole story, it was Sonic's milestone issue of 250, it was a massive battle with nearly every single robot master, who all retained their proper personalities, and had tons of fun banter during the fight with the Sonic cast, especially when the ones with specific powers starting ganging up on the main cast. Even with how Sonic interacted with the likes of Quick Man, Nitro Man, Ball Man etc, it was so much fun.

And Worlds Unite gives us zombie mavericks. No personality, no banter, no nothing. They are literally present as hollow shells with their abilities, and it just makes the "big robot master" fight boring. 

I think another massive missed chance was the fact that when we did get an issue with everyone assembled - another milestone issue if I remember right too - they literally didn't speak a word to each other. One of the issues was literally just a really well-done piece of art with everyone fighting Sigma, but with very little dialogue, leaving the fight rather bland as a result. 

The ending being a timeline wipe as well, but everyone still remembering it was also just completely and totally lame. I wish they could've bothered to figure out a better resolution to split the worlds, but the bullshit timeline explanation just makes it obvious Ian wrote himself into a corner and had no fucking idea how to end the story now, because they were so busy raising stakes that they forgot to give themselves a plausible out. 

There's a lot more I could say, but I'd need to read through the entirety of the story again since I haven't read it since it originally released.

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9 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

 

First things first, I think it's really important to state something - I think at the start - the story arc started really strongly. It addressed the major issue people had with the original story - that out of nowhere, it forcefully interrupts both comics' ongoing storylines to tell the crossover - even worse in Sonic's case since it ruined the conclusion of the Mecha Sally arc, which would've been oh so nice to have seen before the comic had to go in for forced rebooting. Mega Man on the other hand also had one of the biggest game-changer arcs in it's history interrupted (Ra Moon), and especially in MM's case, it was forgotten as soon as it was done.

 

Actually, it was World's Collide that was the cutoff point for the preboot continuity. World's Unite interrupted the Shattered World Crisis right when Knuckles and Amy decided to travel together.

 

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