Sonic the Hedgehog IDW #59: Cover & Info Reveal

[Sonictrainer]

Quote

Androids everywhere!

Three teams are trapped in Eggperial City, fight wave after wave of androids.

Sonic is speeding, Amy is smashing, Tails is flying.

Shadow is punching, Omega is ripping, Rouge is...looting.

But will it be enough?

And has anyone seen Tangle?!

• Current Release Date: March 2023

 

[PC the Hedgehog]

K, starting to get a liiiiiiiittle sick of Eggperial City at this point.

[Kaotic Kanine]

At least the comic isn't focusing on Belle, or Starline, or Surge for the umpteenth time. After 10+ issues of those three dominating the story one way or another, I'll gladly take 4 issues (presumably) in this single city. 4 issues that sees Amy, Blaze, Silver, and now even Team Dark returning to the spotlight. I only wish Cream would be involved as well (y'all know me at this point) but whatever. At this point, I just hope this story turns out interesting.

[Kuzu]

Oh boy, Shadow's coming back.

 

I'm sure we'll have very peaceful and sane discussions about him.

[Slashy]

Sounds really boring. Scrapnik Island showed that just telling fun adventure stories works, I have no idea why we need to plod our way into entirely new ideas rather than just jumping into something new after an arc ends.

 

Shadow is going to be even more scrutinized because Prime made the loner, short-tempered Shadow concept work.

 

[Sonictrainer]

I'm curious about the crystals we've seen so far...

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

10 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Oh boy, Shadow's coming back.

I'm sure we'll have very peaceful and sane discussions about him.

 

If Sega can actually fuck off with the sillier mandates, maybe…

[Red Hot Jack]

Actually, screw Scrapnik Island, the atmosphere is cool and all but it's yet another Sonic and Tails story with little continuity, bring on Silver, Blaze and Team Dark. After Belle, Starline and the Overpowered arc I reallly want to see more of the game cast.

[MGA_Gamer]

34 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Actually, screw Scrapnik Island, the atmosphere is cool and all but it's yet another Sonic and Tails story with little continuity, bring on Silver, Blaze and Team Dark. After Belle, Starline and the Overpowered arc I reallly want to see more of the game cast.

What's wrong with Sonic and Tails stories? They (along with Eggman, Knuckles, Amy and Shadow) are quite possibly the most iconic characters in the franchise. They can hold a story on their own! Anyone else is a bonus!

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, MGA_Gamer said:

What's wrong with Sonic and Tails stories? (...) They can hold a story on their own! Anyone else is a bonus!

They absolutely can. And did. For like a year.

Scrapnik Island, 30th Tails Special, everything with Surge. Heck, I would count Zeti Hunt as their story.

Foxboy can take a liiitle break and let other do something cool.

[Kuzu]

I'm not ngl, Scrapnik Island has my interest way more than just another fight against Eggman does.

So I'm not exactly excited for this, even if it does feature more characters.

[Slashy]

5 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Actually, screw Scrapnik Island, the atmosphere is cool and all but it's yet another Sonic and Tails story with little continuity, bring on Silver, Blaze and Team Dark. After Belle, Starline and the Overpowered arc I reallly want to see more of the game cast.

Yeah but it is an actually good story with a good deal of creativity and good pacing. I also love how it is a story set in the main continuity that is just a story. I love that! I want a Sonic series to just be about his various adventures.

Also I would still argue it is Tails' best outing in this comic so far.

Scrapnik Island and Prime REALLY shows how much the new heroic OCs take away from our main cast. Prime did as much with my fav Amy in eight episodes as IDW did in its entire run. It was great to see the story front and center about Sonic and Tails, even Sigma is just there as a cheerful resident to explain the Scrapnik Island. The new heroic characters are essentially their own independent heroes rather than ancillary to the characters we are most attached to and most likely here to see.

The previous arc made a pointless diversion so we could check on Whisper, and still needed to finish whatever loose ends were needed for Belle. Rather than possibly giving us an interesting moment with the Impostors and Amy or Shadow who could have had an awesome character interaction.

And this upcoming arc looks like it will start off with Sonic teaming up with the Restoration girls again rather than potentially doing something we rarely see (like Sonic teaming up with the Chaotix).

At this point it feels like you are judging stories based on what characters are involved, and while we are still sparse on the details, it just feels like everyone is present currently to make an otherwise uninteresting storyline more interesting, like Generations and to a lesser extent Forces.

If you really wanted Blaze back, having a big storyline set in the Sol Dimension would be a better choice. I recall Flynn even said he believes there are fewer restrictions on world building there so it could have actually been a huge shakeup.

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 hours ago, Slashy said:

If you really wanted Blaze back, having a big storyline set in the Sol Dimension would be a better choice. I recall Flynn even said he believes there are fewer restrictions on world building there so it could have actually been a huge shakeup.

There's been a shakeup over at SEGA regarding Sonic?

[Slashy]

49 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

There's been a shakeup over at SEGA regarding Sonic?

It would be a shakeup to have a major storyline set in the Sol Dimension.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

9 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Actually, screw Scrapnik Island, the atmosphere is cool and all but it's yet another Sonic and Tails story with little continuity, bring on Silver, Blaze and Team Dark. After Belle, Starline and the Overpowered arc I reallly want to see more of the game cast.

For the record, everyone in IDW is the game cast.

[DabigRG]

9 hours ago, MGA_Gamer said:

What's wrong with Sonic and Tails stories? They (along with Eggman, Knuckles, Amy and Shadow) are quite possibly the most iconic characters in the franchise. They can hold a story on their own! Anyone else is a bonus!

Which led to them being overexposed compared to other characters who would not only be nice to see more often, but could really use the opportunity more. We can and will get Sonic & Tails anytime, any day, any place, but others like Knuckles, Cream, or especially someone like Charmy only get to show up every once in a while and usually behind them.

[Kuzu]

The reason Sonic & Tails are constantly used is because they're the most recognizable characters in the series because Sonic 2 is the most well known game in the series and the two don't need much explanation.

Sonic & Tails is self explanatory, you never need to ask why they're together. Even  Knuckles & Amy need some level of setup to justify their presence and most writers would probably prefer to just get to the nitty gritty. To say nothing of the likes of Shadow, Blaze or Silver.

Scrapnik Island or the Tails anniversary doesn't need to spend time setting up its cast, so it can get right to the heart of the story and its much better for it.

 

 

I get everyone has their own favorite characters that they wanna see and all, but this is the consequence of having a cast as large as Sonic's; there's only a limited amount of times they can show up at any given time. Focusing on and building new characters inevitably means the older characters have to be pushed aside so that you can develop new ones.

Tangle, Whisper, Starline, Surge, Kit and the Scrapniks wouldn't be able to develop as much if we had to also account for all of the extra supporting characters.

Unless every character gets their own mini series, these big, "everyone is here" issues are basically the only way to showcase the cast so that they get something to do.

 

 

I like seeing Shadow kick ass, but I'd rather he can get benched so I can get more Surge. 

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

The reason Sonic & Tails are constantly used is because they're the most recognizable characters in the series because Sonic 2 is the most well known game in the series and the two don't need much explanation.

Sonic & Tails is self explanatory, you never need to ask why they're together. Even  Knuckles & Amy need some level of setup to justify their presence and most writers would probably prefer to just get to the nitty gritty. To say nothing of the likes of Shadow, Blaze or Silver.

Scrapnik Island or the Tails anniversary doesn't need to spend time setting up its cast, so it can get right to the heart of the story and its much better for it.

I get everyone has their own favorite characters that they wanna see and all, but this is the consequence of having a cast as large as Sonic's; there's only a limited amount of times they can show up at any given time. Focusing on and building new characters inevitably means the older characters have to be pushed aside so that you can develop new ones.

Tangle, Whisper, Starline, Surge, Kit and the Scrapniks wouldn't be able to develop as much if we had to also account for all of the extra supporting characters.

Unless every character gets their own mini series, these big, "everyone is here" issues are basically the only way to showcase the cast so that they get something to do.

I like seeing Shadow kick ass, but I'd rather he can get benched so I can get more Surge. 

I agree with this.  The problem with having such a large cast is that you have to decide which characters get that focus and which characters have to stay out of focus.  Personally, I rather have certain characters stay out of the limelight rather than shove them into a story that they don't really bring anything to or run the risk of being written terribly because they don't have a real purpose in the story.

[Slashy]

5 hours ago, Kuzu said:

The reason Sonic & Tails are constantly used is because they're the most recognizable characters in the series because Sonic 2 is the most well known game in the series and the two don't need much explanation.

Sonic & Tails is self explanatory, you never need to ask why they're together. Even  Knuckles & Amy need some level of setup to justify their presence and most writers would probably prefer to just get to the nitty gritty. To say nothing of the likes of Shadow, Blaze or Silver.

Scrapnik Island or the Tails anniversary doesn't need to spend time setting up its cast, so it can get right to the heart of the story and its much better for it.

I get everyone has their own favorite characters that they wanna see and all, but this is the consequence of having a cast as large as Sonic's; there's only a limited amount of times they can show up at any given time. Focusing on and building new characters inevitably means the older characters have to be pushed aside so that you can develop new ones.

Tangle, Whisper, Starline, Surge, Kit and the Scrapniks wouldn't be able to develop as much if we had to also account for all of the extra supporting characters.

Unless every character gets their own mini series, these big, "everyone is here" issues are basically the only way to showcase the cast so that they get something to do.

I like seeing Shadow kick ass, but I'd rather he can get benched so I can get more Surge. 

Amy needs no justification. She is on the same level as Tails.

Your comment does make me honestly wish there was a rule put in place about new major hero characters. This cast is bloated. For all the gripes about Frontiers and Prime having limited casts, they did WONDERS for getting all of the major players back on track.

I do not understand why Shadow should get benched to have more Surge, when he could have replaced the time spent on Belle and ESPECIALLY Whisper in that storyline.

------

I think these "all hands on deck" stories are a poor way to utilize the cast. The plot is not built around them in mind and I totally believe it is going to leave most character fans yearning for more because they likely their best character will not have a personal stake in the plot.

This still feels like plot being valued over character which is my biggest problem with this comic as a whole and it is something that I feel cripples characters like Blaze and Silver who need a strong justification to even show up, Shadow whose character is built around having his own agenda. The Chaotix also sort of count, their characters are wasted not having plots built around them as they are mystery solvers.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Plots should be about the characters in them, not one over the other or vice versa. Really, you can't have a plot without characters...or I suppose you could, but I sincerely wish you luck on that front.

More to the point, giving characters a strong justification to appear really shouldn't be difficult. I mean, it actually isn't when you put effort into the process. The real trouble just comes from the plotting and the pacing of the characters and events as they occur. Characters involve have the question of "What are they doing here?" and "Why does this matter to them?" insofar as why they're present--in other words, personal stakes that matter to that specific character and no one else. So long as you're not giving them a generic copy-paste answer that any character can use (i.e. "to stop Eggman because he can be a threat to the world"; that's primarily Sonic's personal stake, not everyone else's), you wouldn't need to worry about wasted characters.

It does force you to pick and choose who gets involved in the story, however, but that's why you use a rotating cast of characters and not the same ones every time. But the only real limits to characters involved in the plot are connections (who's actions are affecting who in the story?), the stakes for those characters (why does this matter to this character and not anyone else?), the pacing (how can you fit this in the space you have), and the plot itself (what it's even about). It shouldn't have to require an "All hands on deck" approach to things.

[Kuzu]

7 hours ago, Slashy said:

Amy needs no justification. She is on the same level as Tails.

Your comment does make me honestly wish there was a rule put in place about new major hero characters. This cast is bloated. For all the gripes about Frontiers and Prime having limited casts, they did WONDERS for getting all of the major players back on track.

I do not understand why Shadow should get benched to have more Surge, when he could have replaced the time spent on Belle and ESPECIALLY Whisper in that storyline.

------

I think these "all hands on deck" stories are a poor way to utilize the cast. The plot is not built around them in mind and I totally believe it is going to leave most character fans yearning for more because they likely their best character will not have a personal stake in the plot.

This still feels like plot being valued over character which is my biggest problem with this comic as a whole and it is something that I feel cripples characters like Blaze and Silver who need a strong justification to even show up, Shadow whose character is built around having his own agenda. The Chaotix also sort of count, their characters are wasted not having plots built around them as they are mystery solvers.

Because an ongoing story needs new characters with new stories to tell. Its pretty simple.

This was literally what the series was doing in the 90's and 2000's. You just don't like it now because you don't get to see your favorites as much and that annoys you.

 

And Amy is boring as shit right now and adds nothing to Sonic aside from being a girl.

4 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Plots should be about the characters in them, not one over the other or vice versa. Really, you can't have a plot without characters...or I suppose you could, but I sincerely wish you luck on that front.

More to the point, giving characters a strong justification to appear really shouldn't be difficult. I mean, it actually isn't when you put effort into the process. The real trouble just comes from the plotting and the pacing of the characters and events as they occur. Characters involve have the question of "What are they doing here?" and "Why does this matter to them?" insofar as why they're present--in other words, personal stakes that matter to that specific character and no one else. So long as you're not giving them a generic copy-paste answer that any character can use (i.e. "to stop Eggman because he can be a threat to the world"; that's primarily Sonic's personal stake, not everyone else's), you wouldn't need to worry about wasted characters.

It does force you to pick and choose who gets involved in the story, however, but that's why you use a rotating cast of characters and not the same ones every time. But the only real limits to characters involved in the plot are connections (who's actions are affecting who in the story?), the stakes for those characters (why does this matter to this character and not anyone else?), the pacing (how can you fit this in the space you have), and the plot itself (what it's even about). It shouldn't have to require an "All hands on deck" approach to things.

Think they're talking about how that isn't being done. These "everyone fights Eggman" stories don't really require having all of these characters, or rather, there's nothing special about this particular conflict that justifies their presence.

They're here to fill numbers and not much else and that's the annoyance because people want the established cast to get the same treatment the newer characters are getting and get new arcs focused on developing them as opposed to simply being another number in a generic conflict.

[Slashy]

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Because an ongoing story needs new characters with new stories to tell. Its pretty simple.

This was literally what the series was doing in the 90's and 2000's. You just don't like it now because you don't get to see your favorites as much and that annoys you.

And Amy is boring as shit right now and adds nothing to Sonic aside from being a girl.

Think they're talking about how that isn't being done. These "everyone fights Eggman" stories don't really require having all of these characters, or rather, there's nothing special about this particular conflict that justifies their presence.

They're here to fill numbers and not much else and that's the annoyance because people want the established cast to get the same treatment the newer characters are getting and get new arcs focused on developing them as opposed to simply being another number in a generic conflict.

I guess you did not like Prime which did her well.

New characters can be villains and small additions like Ashe and the Scrapniks. We do not need to constantly bloat the cast with new additions that need to stick around and take away time from the established characters. Honestly we can have the new characters be more minor additions that clearly take a lower spot from the established cast. Not every new character needs to be added to the cast of heroes.

Gamma was written as a one-shot, Emerl was written as a one-shot, Chip was written as a one-shot, Shahra was written as a one-shot, even Shadow was written as a one shot yet brought back.

There is no need to keep constantly focusing on these new characters even X despite its focus on Chris managed to have the rest of the cast be unintrusive and often gave the cast something interesting to play off of. The new characters fill their own cliques and are essentially independent. There is no one like Topaz who was designed to play off a specific world element and character, the closest is Whisper.

[Kuzu]

47 minutes ago, Slashy said:

I guess you did not like Prime which did her well.

Those are essentially different characters. So I think it says a lot that they had to essentially change who Amy was to make her interesting.

47 minutes ago, Slashy said:

New characters can be villains and small additions like Ashe and the Scrapniks. We do not need to constantly bloat the cast with new additions that need to stick around and take away time from the established characters. Honestly we can have the new characters be more minor additions that clearly take a lower spot from the established cast. Not every new character needs to be added to the cast of heroes.

Gamma was written as a one-shot, Emerl was written as a one-shot, Chip was written as a one-shot, Shahra was written as a one-shot, even Shadow was written as a one shot yet brought back.

There is no need to keep constantly focusing on these new characters even X despite its focus on Chris managed to have the rest of the cast be unintrusive and often gave the cast something interesting to play off of. The new characters fill their own cliques and are essentially independent. There is no one like Topaz who was designed to play off a specific world element and character, the closest is Whisper.

We literally just had Surge, Kit, and Starline. We also had Mimic, Rough, Tumble, and Clutch. All villains. We've had more villains than new heroic characters, with only getting Tangle, Whiper and Belle being any major focus. 

Y'all Sonic fans are so fucking weird about this shit I swear; you complain after a whole decade of not introducing any new major characters and just focusing on the bare minimum of characters to tell the story. So now they're actually starting to introduce new characters again, but now y'all hate it because your old favorites aren't getting time you think they deserve. You want new characters to expand the world, but you don't want them to take attention away from the older characters.

 

I don't really know what to tell you; I'm not so insecure that I'm gonna get upset if my favorites aren't onscreen for a period of time. Knuckles literally hasn't done shit past the first year this series started. He's been stuck on Angel Island because y'all wouldn't shut up about him not doing his job and now he doesn't do shit. So if I can't get a Knuckles story about him, who else am I going to focus on but the new characters who actually have stories to tell and aren't so rigidly defined that prevents any real storytelling?

I liked the stories focused on Tangle and Whisper and dealing with the latter's trauma, I like seeing Surge and Kit bounce off of everyone else and see where they're going. if I'm liking what I'm getting, I don't see the problem.

Sorry you're not seeing your favorites. But you wanted a "Game accurate" book? Well the games were doing this shit of introducing new characters and pushing old ones to the side for years. So you got what you wanted, congratulations.

[Slashy]

 

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Those are essentially different characters. So I think it says a lot that they had to essentially change who Amy was to make her interesting.

I actually like all of the Amy's in that show. Thorn Rose shows how Amy can be antagonistic by showing her with no restraints on her willingness to care for others. It was messy due to bad pacing.

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

We literally just had Surge, Kit, and Starline. We also had Mimic, Rough, Tumble, and Clutch. All villains. We've had more villains than new heroic characters, with only getting Tangle, Whiper and Belle being any major focus. 

Also nearly all the villains you have mentioned are shallow and very irrelevant, or dead, the only exception being the Impostors. Like this comic has a bad problem with establishing villains.

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Y'all Sonic fans are so fucking weird about this shit I swear; you complain after a whole decade of not introducing any new major characters and just focusing on the bare minimum of characters to tell the story. So now they're actually starting to introduce new characters again, but now y'all hate it because your old favorites aren't getting time you think they deserve. You want new characters to expand the world, but you don't want them to take attention away from the older characters.

I actually appreciated a smaller cast in Unleashed and Colors. I started to dislike that the remaining cast was useless.

 

15 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I don't really know what to tell you; I'm not so insecure that I'm gonna get upset if my favorites aren't onscreen for a period of time. Knuckles literally hasn't done shit past the first year this series started. He's been stuck on Angel Island because y'all wouldn't shut up about him not doing his job and now he doesn't do shit. So if I can't get a Knuckles story about him, who else am I going to focus on but the new characters who actually have stories to tell and aren't so rigidly defined that prevents any real storytelling?

 

 

16 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Sorry you're not seeing your favorites. But you wanted a "Game accurate" book? Well the games were doing this shit of introducing new characters and pushing old ones to the side for years. So you got what you wanted, congratulations.

I mean I hope you do not complain too much, Knuckles has been pushed hard everywhere else, but I think him being stuck protecting the Master Emerald is a limitation he is in a similar position as Blaze.

You would get more Knuckles stories if the focus was on deciding what to explore with the existing cast first then creating a story around that. This definitely feels like the plot line was created first and then the characters were placed in it.

If the approach on the comic was focusing on building stories around the characters that already exist Blaze and Knuckles and Shadow would be utilized better. That is what I am complaining about. The only times plots are really built around characters are when they are new characters so they can have their character arcs, but I do not believe that is necessary.

[Kuzu]

First you complain about the new characters being too important...now they're too shallow? 

Yea I have no idea what is it you want and I feel like you're grasping at straws to be upset about something. Like I said, you want somethng new, but stll want to focus on old shit. You want to have your cake and eat it too bascally. 

I don't need to complain more because not seeing my favorite characters isn't as big of a deal as it is for you and most people. You guys don't see Blaze or Cream for a few months and treat it like ts the end of the world, meanwhile other characters get even less but that's perfectly fine. 

 

I've been enjoying most of these stories surrounding the new cast and its basically what I've been asking for in regards to newer stores.  I don't really have much else to add and  feel like this conversation s going nowhere.