30 Days of Sonic DAY 23 - Comic Panel of the Week 3: 'Friendship' [30DOS22]

[Dreadknux]

Thursday’s back again! Time to talk about comics!

Like yesterday, even though this is Week 4, we’re only tracking from Week 2 onwards for stacked Badge rewards here. So if this is your first Comic Panel of the Week, you earn a Blue badge. Your second time, a Bronze badge. If it’s your third, a Silver badge. Those of you who took part in Week 1’s activity will earn a separate ‘Day 2’ Badge.

Comic Panel of the Week

Friendship

Through thick and thin, Sonic has always had his buddies by his side. Whether it’s the Freedom Fighters, banded together and united through a shared bond, or lifelong friends like Miles ‘Tails’ Prower and even rivals such as Knuckles the Echidna.

Share with the community a comic panel from your favourite issue, any series, that you think best highlights Sonic’s powerful friendships.

[castell-neath]

Another early STC one for me, this time from the issue 2 story, Robofox. I love the idea that even once "Badniked" to be his ultimate weapon, Tails remembers that sonic is his friend and turns on Eggman. Its also about 25 years ahead of the Lost World idea!!!

 

Just shows the close friendship these two have!

[Rabid-Coot]

This feels hard as a fleetway reader but I did manage to remember a moment of Sonic not being an arsehole to a friend.

[Rabbitearsblog]

There are a lot of great friendship moments between Sonic and Tails in the IDW comics and I actually had a lot of favorites like Sonic reassuring Tails about always being there for him in issue 1 and Sonic's genuine concern for Tails' safety during the Battle for Angel Island arc.  But, I eventually went with this moment during Sonic and Tails' fight against the Deadly Six after the events of the Metal Virus where they fist bumped each other.

 

Sonic and Tails fist bumping each other has always been a staple of their friendship throughout the franchise and it was great seeing them do this after their battle with the Deadly Six as it shows that no matter how much of a beating they both get, they will still stick with each other no matter what.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

I love this moment:

Sonic avenges his closest friends.

One of the few times where sonic shows his genuine emotions for Amy and stands up to knuckles in her behalf and Amy is eating it up lol. This issue had some good friendship moments with sonic and tails and sonic and knuckles. After sonic figures out that knuckles is fighting for the master emerald, he immediately tells knuckles he's gonna throw the fight because he knows how important the master emerald is to him. Knuckles declines, demanding that sonic gives him a good fight instead.

Sonic notices tails being down after he lost his fight with honey and when tails outsmarted metal sonic in the end, sonic doesn't steal the credit, but he lifts his best friend's spirits up and declares him the champion.

[Indigo Rush]

Just before we'd never see them again, this group shot of Sonic and the Freedom Fighters hits home knowing that despite everything, these guys were still friends til the end. You don't make this kind of company being a true loner. Sonic's friend circle spans far and wide and this is an amazing mix of the game cast and comic only characters. 

[Covskin]

"Fleetway Sonic is an arsehole" is a common opinion nowadays, something I never picked up on when I was young. I always saw it more as him being a sarcastic quipper, and honestly don't think its something too unusual with British lads. Of course, with Sonic it was more one-sided. So what if you got two characters on more equal footing?

 

You always knew the Chaotix had each other's backs, but Mighty and Espio were the ones who had the most banter with each other.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Time to the most obvious choice when it comes to best friends!

...

.......yeaaaah. 

Alright, this story for the majority of it is one of Flynn's absolute weakest. Sonic acts like a complete ass to justify this 'fight', and the thing that this entire fight relies on - the stupid love triangle with Fiona Fox is ridiculous. That said, amongst all the crap, I think there's one actually really nice moment of gold that should be highlighted, if taken in a vacuum:

So for context here, Sonic and Tails have been fighting after Tails' parents basically convinced Tails to break the law and bust his dad out of prison for leading a charge against Elias Acorn. Sonic has been an egotistical dick during these two issues, and Tails called him out on all the shitty things he'd done.

Eventually however, when the idiotic setup for the fight is finally over, we finally get to see a really nice showcase of Sonic & Tails' friendship as they make up. When Sonic realises where Tails' anger is coming from and how he'd been storing it for so long, Sonic finally drops his cocky façade, earnestly offering to stand still and let Tails hit him. 

From here, Sonic & Tails have an honest heart to heart conversation about everything that's been going on for the last while. Sonic's heartbreak following the fallout of his relationship with Sally going bust, how he'd been drifting around, trying to find something to refill Sally's role in his heart, how he justified it as being the right thing to help Tails, although now he can really see that he was just being selfish.

But the moment that sells this to me is that one panel - Sonic crouching down and placing his hand on Tails' shoulder as he honestly apologises to Tails for everything he'd done wrong. How he'd never meant to hurt him, and acknowledging his wrong-doing in everything that led to the blow up. House of Cards absolutely sucks as a story arc, but if you took this as just Sonic apologising to Tails after they got into a blow-out over something, this would be fantastic.

And then we have the final page where Sonic and Tails reconcile, talking about how strong Tails has gotten, and making jokes about Knuckles and Shadow's influence on Tails. The last panel with Sonic playfully giving Tails a noogie and and being playful again is just really great, how they immediately made up and are acting like best bros again, it's just a really, really good moment in a otherwise pretty bad two issue arc.

[Dr. Mechano]

No better way to celebrate Eggman's birthday, than a panel from the IDW 30th anniversary special story, "Dr. Eggman's Birthday!"

In this story, the Badniks try to throw Eggman a surprise by going out and catching Sonic on their own. But Eggman is worried once he learns they're launching a plan without him, since they could be badly damaged. He rushes to the scene of the battle and orders his robots to go home, furious.

Then later, we get this exchange:

In a rare moment of emotional openness, the Doctor shows some fondness for his Badniks:

It's a nice little story that shows - despite everything - Eggman and his Badniks truly do care about one another.

 

Oh, and if this has to be a panel about Sonic's friendships specifically, I've got you covered:

From the same special, the opening story - "Seasons of Chaos" - features this nice little moment:

Sonic is saying "we're tougher." He's acknowledging the power of his friends (and temporary trucies, in the Hooligans' case) here, which I think is nice. There are certain challenges Sonic can't take on alone, but he knows the gang's got his back. That total confidence in his allies speaks a lot about Sonic's friendship with them.

[Cosmos Rogue]

I just love seeing Sonic get Tails into trolling the bad guys too.

(Poor Tumble)

[WanderingBleats]

I'm still in early Archie, and honestly not much has really resonated with me so far in IDW in general on the friendship front. But this moment from Archie #56 is kinda cool.

It's hard to put this into words exactly, but this is the first time it felt to me like Sonic and Tails were starting to develop their "best friends" relationship in Archie. Archie inherited a lot of baggage from SatAM, and while Tails was certainly more active than he was in that show, and seemed to have a closer relationship with Sonic, he still felt like just "another one of the Freedom Fighters," even if we were occasionally told he was special somehow, or he had the occasional pair-up issue with Sonic.

But now Tails has just fought side-by-side with Sonic and Knuckles in a battle against Mammoth Mogul, during which he became the third person in the comic to manifest a Super form-- "Turbo Tails." During the battle, Mammoth Mogul claimed that "Destiny has decreed that these three will  be your era's greatest champions, especially young Prower!" It seems to have caught Sonic's attention, and he's really proud of Tails for it. The moment itself is kind of sweet on its own, but more importantly is what it sets into motion. The very next panel, Sonic invites Tails to come along with him to travel all over Mobius-- just Sonic and Tails, with nary a Freedom Fighter in sight. That arc lasts several issues, and it feels like the beginning of Tails really taking on his role as Sonic's closest companion and friend, which I know is going to grow as the comic goes on. This surely isn't the best moment of it, but it's the start of it, and that's what I've seen so far.

...Honestly, though, I wish this had allowed for a "cartoon scene of the week" instead of "comic panel of the week." I have way more good examples from the cartoons and anime that have stuck with me. Especially the tight-knit familial relationship between Sonic and Tails in AoStH (the only media I can think of where Sonic literally says "I love you" to Tails!!!), but I guess that's neither here nor there.

[Iko]

From the 30th anniversary special as well.

Sonic and friends are fighting Metal Sonic for a Chaos Emerald.

This panel became a meme I think. Some teamwork gone bad... and Sonic received a lot of compliments instead lol

Trusting each other...

and, even more trusting his best friend, but receiving unexpected help from a rival instead.

This fight is clumsy and funny, but the interactions between the characters, even though things don't always go as expected, show the bound between all of them which goes beyond just fighting together for a common interest. Well, maybe Knuckles is just doing it for a common interest, but for a stubborn rival of Sonic, it's still nice to see him trusting and helping him for that, instead of trying to go after Metal Sonic all by himself.

[Sapphirine Wind]

I choose this page because it's kind of a twofer, although Rouge's reaction here caught me more

spoilers for idw just in case; this is for the Metal Virus arc.

Spoiler

Rouge's reactions to the ordeal of Shadow succumbing to the metal virus... well it kinda hurts. She and Shadow debuted in the same game, so it kind of goes that she and him are a package deal-- they are friends however Sega decides he feels about it.

She's not just hurt, she's angry. Shadow was being a dumbass by not approaching the Zombots carefully and it didn't end well for him. It kind of goes with the dynamic I see with a lot of fans where you get the feel that Rouge is more or less Shadow's experienced older sibling who's seen everything. So she's mad at him because he couldn't go beyond his arrogance, and as far as she feels he died because of it. Her anger is also probably being used to hide how sad it's making her, too; I can't see her being vulnerable to Sonic right now.

Amy also trying to checking up on Sonic is fairly sweet. I don't mind any focus on Amy crushing on him, but it's good to see she's being written as having priorities in mind, where we clearly know she sees Sonic as more than her crush; she genuinely sees him as a friend.

[NikoS]

The world was not shattered anymore, brighter days were to come, after a fierce battle, these friends endured it all, not without losses, but remained together 'till the end. A sweet final note for the "Shattered World Crisis" saga, and turned out to be the final note for the whole comic.

Very appropriate last panels for sure.

[JezMM]

Gonna have to do a +2 for "Amy being Sonic's friend".  I know this example plays of her crush on him, but it has a cheeky, honest, friendly feel to it that I dig so much. God Mega Drive, why did we have to lose you before your time.

And on that note... yeah look at these guys.  Sonic Boom kinda gave us a taste of how these main four would interact with each other on adventures if they were allowed to go on them with good writing, but I so desperately want to see it with either the classic or modern gang more often.

[Dr. Detective]

This is going to come off as extremely mundane and simple but I'm choosing this small panel.

I dunno. There's something great about the fact that these two are so close that Sonic can literally smush his cheek against Tails' so that they can both look at what's on his small screen and neither of them have to make a comment or a joke about it.

It's just a thing that happens. Comfortable intimacy with your brother is a nice, positive thing. 

[Sega DogTagz]

Here's one for ya

 

 

Rouge is so on the nose here. Scandalous is the perfect word to describe all of this. I like these pages because it represents the closest Sonic and Shadow ever got to a functional understanding. Even if they weren't friends in the literal sense, it didn't mean that game couldn't recognize game. Shadow is actually capable of being an adult here.

[Multikaris]

He was Sonic’s mortal enemy, his greatest failure. He was even an implicit Satan-figure at one point, with it being stated Mobius was completely peaceful before Robotnik. As even after Robotnik was toppled, there were still a lot of (mostly incompetent) supervillains, it’s implied Robotnik’s reign of terror made them the way they were, but they later established there was still conflict prior to Robotnik, notably with Sonic’s distant ancestor Bravehog. But regardless, even after all the death and destruction over him, the alien invasions, ancient monstrosities, bizarrely sadistic variations of beloved game characters, smear campaigns, crime waves, and so much more, Sonic still cares about Kintobor.

 

 

This here is the man Shadow met a fruitless death for, the man who made Sonic who he is. To see him again warms Sonic’s heart, even after all the brutality of his regimes.

[Zaysho]

I am an Archie Team Dark shill

Always loved the group dynamic of these three. They have each other's backs and they're the only ones who can check each other. Rouge has to be strict with Shadow sometimes (see the "Total Eclipse" arc when she gets sick of Shadow fighting with Knuckles for no reason and tells him off for endangering everyone). It's just fun writing for characters that you wouldn't expect since they're not particularly open with anyone else, and while it exists to some degree in IDW, it's downplayed and I think that's a bit of a loss. It's also kind of funny seeing Rouge being the glue that keeps them together especially when in the previous continuity, she was still pretty unsavory.

Also them watching the Fighters tournament together at Breezie's casino always gets a good chuckle out of me.

[SkyHorizon]

On 6/25/2022 at 4:56 AM, Sega DogTagz said:

Here's one for ya

Rouge is so on the nose here. Scandalous is the perfect word to describe all of this. I like these pages because it represents the closest Sonic and Shadow ever got to a functional understanding. Even if they weren't friends in the literal sense, it didn't mean that game couldn't recognize game. Shadow is actually capable of being an adult here.

I just realize that if the last panel would be published today, it would clearly be a jab at SEGA's ridiculous mandates.

Seriously, when I re-read stuff like this I realize how much I liked having Shadow as an actual character instead of a pathetic "Vegeta_2.0_but_worse".

[Celestia]

Honestly, I have to second the panel Indigo posted.

On 6/23/2022 at 10:48 AM, Indigo Rush said:

Somewhere around a year or two ago IIRC, I decided to reread Ian's run of Archie Sonic, and as bittersweet as it was sometimes, it was worth it I think. This panel (more or less) being the end of it does feel fitting, huh...I know it's super unlikely, and who knows what form they'd be in now, but I'd love to see these characters again.

 

...Also the way Cheese is drawn there is delightful. Just look at his goofy face.

[Nix]

these two are already dating and they don't even know it

Honestly, the worst part about Amy has always been her annoying one-note obsession with getting Sonic to marry her, and the more writers try to move away from that aspect of her character the better. IDW's introduction for Amy is a lot of fun and really highlights how well these two can work together when they're acting like friends and not a bad anime parody.

[Sonictrainer]

When Sonic first transformed into the Werehog in #265, Dark Gaia's influence was blinding his perception and causing him to be aggressive.

Fortunately, with the help of Amy, Sally, Mighty, & Ray, he was able to regain his senses.

[Eggman Fan]

Here is a fun fact about Big the Cat: He is based. also bonus panel of Big.

[Ducktor Naldush]

Taking advantage of those extra days, I think I'll try getting that comic-related gold badge at least.

Well, all the previous examples are great and all, and some I would have personally chosen, but I think my pick will fall on this small scene from IDW's Sonic The Hedgehog, issue 3

 

So, why is that?

Well, I am a sucker for a Knuckles who is not stupid or dumb or is a step away from forgetting how to breathe. I enjoy it when they write him as a guy who takes everything seriously, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical the situation is. I think it makes his interactions with Sonic funnier and more engaging. 

And in this case you can totally see how they can be friends and kick butts together. That "You're the salt of the Earth" is not even mocking the poor echidna, Sonic genuinely likes him this way, I think it's so sweet.