Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, RictalRose0 said:

Hhaha no the Xorda weren't any better that the Black Arms.

Who said that they were?

 

1 hour ago, Ernest-Panda said:

The story was written by Bollars, though.

Oh, good.

Really glad Penders wasn't credited for that.

30 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

It changes the whole perception of how we saw "Mobius". Previous to that it was just a weird alien planet with anthros and humans. What the Xorda did was give us an explanation as to why it was like that. And it was an explanation that we did not need and that Bollers didn't exactly put that much thought into. Yet another time the comic added unnecesary lore that it would go on to ignore anyway because we just HAVE to contrive the plot and overcomplicate things every single issue up in here.

Sounds an awful lot like what Sonic Team did to Shadow with the Black Arms.

The unfortunate part is that it didn't just affect Shadow, it affected a lot of the franchise's perception, albeit indirectly.

The Xorda had far less of that kind of impact, and everything involving them was mostly ignored without bringing down the comics anywhere near that extent by comparison--although it should be emphasized that that's also due in part to the comics being far more niche by comparison and were pretty average at best at the time (which isn't saying much in hindsight), so any damage done wouldn't carry  on as long or as heavily.

[RictalRose0]

The Xorda literally amount to nothing in the grand-scale of things. They helped to create Shadow and that's it. 

13 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

, it affected a lot of the franchise's perception

How exactly? As far as I know nobody cares about the Black Arms. But people do make fun of Black Doom's goofy obviously evil design. 

[Meta77]

34 minutes ago, BlueSky said:

Oh, I thought Mobians and Overlanders were the consequences of that bomb-thing... go figure.

I think many his. Some were cause of the bomb I think it's been years lol

[BlueSky]

^Um, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but are you typing with phone/something akin to that? I'm kind of baffled what you mean by "many his" in this context... Sorry.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

13 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

The Xorda literally amount to nothing in the grand-scale of things. They helped to create Shadow and that's it. 

That's ironically why they don't carry that much of the kind of notoriety that the Black Arms do given they were forgettable by comparison.

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How exactly? As far as I know nobody cares about the Black Arms. But people do make fun of Black Doom's goofy obviously evil design. 

Primarily because of the game they were antagonists in, and one that was a major entry in the franchise. They may have been more tied to Shadow, but they affected a lot more in the fandom than the Xorda who only appeared in a big role for like two out of nearly 300 issues and were barely spoken of again. And the Black Arms being tied to a major character like that makes them harder to forget seeing as how they're a big part of that character's history.

We can forget about the Xorda or at least carry on without a care of them even being a thing, but the same can't be said about Black Arms.

[Big Panda]

Yeah...I still don't see why the whole "future Earth" thing was an issue.

The gene bomb essentially just reset the planet back to the beginning from an evolution standpoint, didn't it?

[RictalRose0]

lmao shit i made a typo. I meant the Black Arms end up doing nothing for the narrative other that create Shadow and that's it. In a way, the Xorda actually end up doing nothing either buy they are an annoyance because really, it just messed up something that was very simple to think about. Sonic lives in a planet, it's called Mobius. Humans and anthros and other mutants live on it. That's it. There's no need to include the brain aliens that threw in the furry nukes at earth.  

Also you're still not explaining how exactly the Black Arms affected the fandom anyway. What are there people that make Black Arms OCs now? Cause I've never seen people actually talk about them other that when it comes to Shadow. And that honestly doesn't mess with Shadow's character that much since we already knew from Adventure 2 that he was a freaky science project immortal hedgehog anyway, being half alien isn't that weird for him. It wouldn't be the last time the Sonic games did aliens either. There's the Wisps in Colors, the ones that created Gemerl, all the stuff in season 3 of Sonic X, the Deadly six race in Lost World, etc.

Really I don't mind aliens it's just that the Xorda in particular being implied to pretty much create the entire setting of the series? I don't like it.

[BlueSky]

Maybe Black Arms are not talked about that much because they haven't really have that much attention in games after ShtH, as far as I know at least. And judging how much Xorda (etc.) have attention, comics appearances don't really make characters more visible when talking about fandom as a whole.

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, BlueSky said:

^Um, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but are you typing with phone/something akin to that? I'm kind of baffled what you mean by "many his" in this context... Sorry.

i meant to say many hid underground in station square if i recall correctly and just mass produced there and some humans came after the bombing on the outside. Yea I post on my phone till i get home from work.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, RictalRose0 said:

lmao shit i made a typo. I meant the Black Arms end up doing nothing for the narrative other that create Shadow and that's it. In a way, the Xorda actually end up doing nothing either buy they are an annoyance because really, it just messed up something that was very simple to think about. Sonic lives in a planet, it's called Mobius. Humans and anthros and other mutants live on it. That's it. There's no need to include the brain aliens that threw in the furry nukes at earth. 

It still is simple--they bombed the Earth, which help give rise to furry mutants called Mobians. It was pretty much explained just like that in the comics with hardly anything more. Not really complicated, but just irrelevant in the long run.

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Also you're still not explaining how exactly the Black Arms affected the fandom anyway. What are there people that make Black Arms OCs now? Cause I've never seen people actually talk about them other that when it comes to Shadow. And that honestly doesn't mess with Shadow's character that much since we already knew from Adventure 2 that he was a freaky science project immortal hedgehog anyway, being half alien isn't that weird for him.

What is there to explain aside from the obvious reputation they have along with the entirety of Shadow's game?

That's not hard to get given how much of a base-breaker their presence that ShTH was--yeah, the whole game was a base-breaker, but they're a huge part of it as much as guns, swearing, and the whole tryhard tone was. And they most certainly messed with his character because many people thought that was ridiculous fluff to his backstory that was already explained without aliens being in it to begin with. As a result, that "alien-hybrid" backstory of his is mocked, as well as feeding ammo to those who hate the character himself.

The same can't be said of the Xorda, who were practically forgotten about and benched without them causing that much of a hiccup. They may have made the setting, but they don't do much of anything worthwhile to matter.

 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

The biggest wrench I saw the Xorda backstory throwing into things was the whole "Mobius has 12 moons" (or was it 20?) thing from back when it was supposed to be another world. I think Ian handled that one cleverly enough, though, even if there might still be some rough edges on it. But then, he was just working with what he had.

[RictalRose0]

It messes with the setting in the sense that when the Xorda bombed Earth, it was just like our Earth. But 1000 years into the future and Earth is exactly the same as before, because Sonic Adventure introduced the freakin' United States (United Federation in this case) into the world, meaning Sonic and Co. very much lived in a world much like our own. So the Xorda bomb the Earth, and one thousand years later human civilization looks the exact same it looked 1000 years back? That's just silly.

But Xorda aside a lot of the world in the Archie comics was a terrible silly mess. They introduced a lot of things and screwed themselves up because the Adventure series would eventually introduce the fact that there is human civilization that is exactly like our own, while the comics had tried to establish mobius as some sort of apolayptic like Earth with furries and humans and "Overlanders" at each other's throats and the humans living in some sort of medieval-futuristic mix. That didn't exactly mix well with what was introduced in Adventure. 

The games also had a problem of mixing the setting of the classic games with mordern, hence why the "Two Worlds" thing comes from. But in the comics that's not the case, everything takes place in the same world all mixed and jumbled together in a mess. I'm not sure if the reboot changed this either, but at least they got rid of a lot of the useless kingdoms/countries and just went with the Unleashed map. That's a lot more clean and easy to follow for me.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Is that really that silly compared almost everything that this franchise has had in it overall?

Nevermind that back then, the comics were their own thing with elements from the games. It was as game-centric as it is now.

[RictalRose0]

The only thing that does annoy me to this day of the game continuity is how Sega absolutely refuses to say what the name of Sonic's World is and what's up with this "Two worlds" thing. I don't get it... But it's not exactly messy. Both planets seem to basically just be Earth but with a bit of futurism in some places and fantasy in some others. No apocalypse, not full of all kinds of mutants. It's just Earth but with cartoony furries and magic. Eggman aside it doesn't seem to be in any particular crisis or so as well.

 

[Shadowlax]

" Fuck you its whatever we want the game to look like is what planet he's from " 

I'm guessing is the actual explanation, because maybe they aren't putting as much thought into that part as we are. 

As for black arms, there are are a lot of people content with the idea of them, eclipse helped a bit. But whether folks like em or hate em depends on who you talk to, whats weird about the black arms is that their addition to shadow's backstory is I feel is a good thing , at least for the comics I enjoy whats going on now a lot actually. As for Xorda, I always forget that happened. 

As for adventure in the comics, the issue with everything adventure forward, a bunch of events and characters kind of throw wrenches into entire sections of the comic, which I guess is why they largely ignored it until sega said " DO IT RIGHT NOW". It astounds me that sega made a better princess character than sally in one go, rarely do I see a charter invalidate another entire existence. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

I actually wouldn't mind the "Two Worlds" theory, if we did anything with the concept. The way it is know it's just needlessly complicated.

(Besides, if Sonic is on earth now, why there is a chihuahua spirit inside of planet?)

As for case "Black Arms Vs Xorda", personally I think Black Arms are better then Xorda (not by much, but still). Xorda are boring looking, with boring spaceship, boring secret weapon thing, really dumb reason to attack us and the war wasn't all that great. Remember that epic pannel when buch of characters charge to attack? Does anyone remembers what are they attacking? I tell you, bunch of laser turrets. And they don't even smash them, Knuckles does, somehow. Even Sonic flying giant robot, something that should be kinda cool, is by hampered  reeealy boring design.

Black Arms are a little more varied and recognizable, they fly in black comet and flying ancient temple and war with them had a little more involvement. Sonic and his frineds were fighting, collecting emeralds, stopping bombs, defending president, etc. Chaotix even had cool miniquest of their own. The only reason Archie story is better is lack of guns, swearing, killing your own allies and overall structure. And Archie has it's dumb moments too, like Robotnik moving Sonic's legs manually in order to power the machine. Or King Max "cool moment" when he demand Eggman to give him half of the planet, ignoring that 1 Eggman will obviously won't keep his promise 2 your life is at danger to, Maxie.

But I see that everyone talks about lore impact. They both drastically change backstory of world/ important character. But the question is, is it automatically bad? To answer this, I'll point at Steven Universe. When show started we didn't knew Crystal Gems were aliens. Imagine you didn't know it was planned from beginning, would that "ruin things for ever"? (the answer is no). I will also say "Adventure Time" and shut up before I spoil something.

Ok, so what is actual impact of both retcons. Archie is simple: none. We learned that it was earth all along and life move one. Nothing was learned, nothing changed. And even if old continuity was back and some new inspired writer decided to follow this lead, what can be learned? For not-spoilery example Splatoonn is post-apocaliptic word and that explains one living cat. It just nifty trivia and it's kinda fascinating contrast that post-apocaliptic world can be so cheerful. In Sonic case it only confuses matter. So in the end of the day it's like Lex Luthor hating Superman for making him bald: a weird thing that comics pretend never happened.

Shadow is a bit trickier. I mean, yes, it made already confusing Shadow's origin even more confusing. But on the bright side, it makes Gerald even more tragic figure. It sad to know that he build Eclipse Canon to save humanity, only to go insane and turn it against us. Also, it gave us "Shadow Fall". I know, not the perfect SU arc, but it interesting to think that Shadow had to kill his own kind and still he will never be fully trusted. Game failed to capitalize on this idea, but left seeds for comic to use them

[Meta77]

People really got to stop assuming the fanbase leaves or is soured by a bad sonic game. I myself enjoyed shadow and 06 .....06my first playthrough I loved.  later plays I understood it was broken.  But a bad game should not cause someone to leave. I hate lost worlds goofiness but I still like the series. If someone leaves or becomes that disgruntled they were never a fsn. Live and learn. Improve upon the good bits

 

 

But I honestly never seen anyone besides this thread hate on the black arms. The xorda just literally were noting more that a cut out 1 time villain honestly they could use anyone in their place and the story would almost not be affecfed

[RictalRose0]

7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

It astounds me that sega made a better princess character than sally in one go, rarely do I see a charter invalidate another entire existence. 

Blaze is literally all Sally should have been to begin with. Even Elise served her purpose well enough and didn't overstay her welcome (inb4 bestiality)

[Meta77]

Elise could have been a good princess had they actually you know written her out. She had only 1, I'll give up my life to protect my people moment. The rest she jumped off stuff. And the kiss wasn't as bad as some hard fans make it lol. There are tons of shows with humans with human like animals. I actually cheered lol

 

Edit. I hope people know when I said written out I actually meant given her a purpose not out the game lol.

[RictalRose0]

3 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

(Besides, if Sonic is on earth now, why there is a chihuahua spirit inside of planet?)

 

I have my theory that the Earth shown on Unleashed is the Earth Sonic andf his friends (except for Shadow and Blaze) comes from. Because Light Gaia lives there, aka Chip. And the Adventure games and Sonic X kinda implied the humans in the Adventure World didn't know what Anthros were. Or it could be that Anthros lived there thousands of years ago but eventually the chaos emeralds caused them to be sent into a different world, and that's why Chip could still be at the core of the non-anthro world yet the humans forgot what Anthros were, since they went away a long time ago, with only Chip remaining. And Gerald somehow exploited the Chaos energy drives to travel between these two worlds so he could collect the remaining emeralds and in the way picked up an Anthro Hedgehog to complete his research into project Shadow. And then somehow Eggman ended up traveling between worlds as well and that's how he ended up in Sonic's furry world and like in Sonic X/Adventure the chaos emerald once again caused him and Sonic to travel to Gerald's World, which is why Eggman is shocked to learn his family comes from the other World, as he might have suffered amnesia when he was transported to Sonic's world.

Or maybe i'm just looking too much into it and Sega doesn't care that much lol

[SSF1991]

Update on the Overdrive comic cancellation listing, according to what Ian Flynn said to a fan on Twitter.

[RictalRose0]

"realesed at some point, if not by someone else"

What does that mean?

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

On 3/26/2017 at 6:00 PM, Ernest-Panda said:

*sees current discussion*

God, we desperately need some new issues ASAP...

Accidental quote, though I agree with this.

Does that mean SEGA has found a new publisher?

[Your Vest Friend]

It can be as done as it wants to be, that doesn't affect things if Archie literally cannot get anything out in regards to Sonic.

I don't think Ian is all that involved in things, so I dunno if he really knows the plan going forward. 

[Meta77]

22 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

"realesed at some point, if not by someone else"

What does that mean?

It means Archie could lose the licence and another company pick it up to release issues like idw