Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Borvoc]

8 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I mean I formulate my opinions on characters based on their merits, not how other people feel about them. But you do you breh. 

That's you, there are some characters I feel better were removed. The reason I mention rotor is because I don't feel like he contributes anything interesting to the dynamic of the comic, and never really has. Ontop of the fact that I personally find him to be poorly designed. You may like him, that's fine. 

Interesting. My subjective opinion differs from yours in that I think Sally has been greatly fleshed out as a tactician and leader post-reboot in that she's been allowed to be stretched and to fail tactically at times but also to overcome and recover. The way she works with Nicole has also been interesting. I think Rotor, on the other hand, provides a valuable support role as a technician who, along with Tails, built the Sky Patrol and keeps their equipment running. It would be hard to believe Tails doing all that on his own, so adding Rotor to the mix helps. It can be annoying in fiction when Mr. Action McMeathead who's good at punching people suddenly knows how to hack a government server because the plot requires it.

41 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Because of her powers, I don't think it's even possible for Blaze to die in a fire.

This is actually a very good point. She could probably not die in an ice either, as she could potentially just melt herself out, and since I don't think that Fire and Ice trailer ever answered the in-universe question of what you get when you combine the two, I feel as though I've run out of ways in which she could possibly die.

[MetalSkulkBane]

13 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

I think Rotor, on the other hand, provides a valuable support role as a technician who, along with Tails, built the Sky Patrol and keeps their equipment running. It would be hard to believe Tails doing all that on his own, so adding Rotor to the mix helps.

Sorry, but I can't agree. What you just spelled out is that Rotor is useless, since Tails is filling his role. Name one other fictional team that needs two mechanics? Dr Light and Dr Willy sure made lot of robots without any help.

But even if you're right, that means that Rotor's role is still neglect-able. What he has except being a mechanic? Standard design, dull personality, no powers, zero backstory (before Reboot. Now daddy issues). Over all no one hates Rotor, but I never met single fan of his. That's why Flynn tried to kick him out in Preboot (in my opinion, he never said that out loud).

[Borvoc]

41 minutes ago, Borvoc said:

It would be hard to believe Tails doing all that on his own, so adding Rotor to the mix helps.

Edit: And now we have that whole thing with Rotor's dad in the Egg Army or whatever, which allows for some interesting plot.

[RictalRose0]

You can't kill Blaze. You can only pull her in a situation where she is both dead and alive. Schrodinger's Blaze.

[Borvoc]

26 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

You can't kill Blaze. You can only pull her in a situation where she is both dead and alive. Schrodinger's Blaze.

She's even a cat! You just blew my mind.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Sorry, but I can't agree. What you just spelled out is that Rotor is useless, since Tails is filling his role. Name one other fictional team that needs two mechanics? Dr Light and Dr Willy sure made lot of robots without any help.

Phineas and Ferb

Razor and T-Bone from Swat Kats

Bentley and Penelope in Sly Cooper (before the latter turned traitor)

Heck, Legend of Korra had five mechanics working in crossways with and against each other at several moments.

And that's just a small list.

Having one mechanic on a team doesn't preclude them from having another, dude. And it doesn't make the other useless--that's like saying we don't need any hero except Sonic to fight the bad guys, and ignoring what other characters can contribute.

And it's not like you can't make those techies have a specialty so that the other can shine elsewhere. For instance, Tails can specialize in aeronautics while Rotor can specialize in weaponry. They're are dozens of different disciples of engineering, so they can have another mechanic onboard to do other things.

 

[Zaysho]

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

that's like saying we don't need any hero except Sonic to fight the bad guys, and ignoring what other characters can contribute.

Meanwhile, at Sonic Team.

I know Rotor and Tails have a lot of crossover, but don't they have different specialties anyway? Rotor seems to do most of the work maintaining the Sky Patrol and keeping its systems functional along with NICOLE, Tails seems to specialize more with the planes and maybe even the Extreme Gear (oh, and Antoine is a pilot too, is he suddenly redundant and useless?). Not to mention, what happens if Tails isn't around or is on a mission to do something, wouldn't it make sense that another as skilled as he is (possibly more so) would be keeping watch from above and helping coordinate or otherwise serve as back-up? And Rotor's field skills, especially in the water, seem like they're useful when the situation calls for it, like helping Sonic out at Meropis or during the team's rescue mission in Station Square.

[KoDaiko]

I don't mind having much "fighter" roles (everyone, specifically Sonic Bunnie & Antoine), but I did feel odd that 2 out of 7? 8? (+2) main members were a mechanic. Maybe because they're important but minor, and also considered more "special". In the game the cast were small so each had a specific "role" or trait that characterized them and didn't overlap much. If they did, there was something that made them different. Rotor and Tails doesn't have much distinct differences to me. You can say the two have "specialties", but tbh I think Archie make it look like so so they can keep the game character and comic character in the same team.

I mean, not to overrate him, but game Tails is the type who can make anything from bombs, laser swords, translation gagets, hover boards, airplanes, walking mechs, and fiddle with computers. He also makes a giant plane in SonicX. I won't say he's the type to make a giant high-tech aircraft, but who knows, in this alternate universe where Sonic and his friends join a freedom fighting team maybe he can.

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

Not to mention, what happens if Tails isn't around or is on a mission to do something, wouldn't it make sense that another as skilled as he is (possibly more so) would be keeping watch from above and helping coordinate or otherwise serve as back-up? 

"Two mechanic as backup" makes me think, does the Freedom fighters have specific "roles"? Sally's the leader, Tails and Rotor (and Nichole)'s the engineer/repair, what else? Do they have a backup leader? A medic? A scout? 

[BlueSky]

I think that putting all technic stuff on one 8-year-old kid's shoulders would be an overkill in so many levels, it's good that there's someone else so they can divide the workload by their specialities. Plus I think it was a nice way to use him to balance the discussion over Angel Island vs. rest of the world's safety. And I actually feel emotions when thinking about said character so at least for me he isn't that dull. I feel I can say I like him in a way, I'm not expecting anybody else feeling anything about him, but I think that as long as there's at least some people that feel something for some character that character isn't really that unneeded. I think, for me, there would be a big blank space in the team without him or any other of the FF's permanently gone.

And I think all non-game FF's went trough some long design sessions, just pick up one of those GN's that have some design stuff on them for starters.

And now that I'm on it, if we were to kill Blaze, one of the more efficient ways would be a spontaneous magma fist I suppose.

And in what box can you put Blaze on exactly to make her an epitome of wave-particle-dualism? That cage was showing us too much of her for fitting into that role, even when she was kind of dying already out of shame or something...  

___

Tails needs Rotor for keeping him on the ground thus evading the fate of game-Tails becoming obsessed on his own talents in Lost World, it seems.  

[JC_Mike]

18 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

The problem is that the assumption that Overdrive will see release one day because that's how comics usually work kinda falls flat when you factor in the fact that SEGA does not behave like a typical licencor. They are super fickle about what they want consumers to see, even moreso than Nintendo. If they don't want it to happen, it's shit out of luck. 

Look I know that this was posted about a day ago, but your going to have to provide a more concrete example about how SEGA has been super fickle. I don't really see what you see on that subject. If anything, if they were super fickle about how the blue hedgehog was portrayed, the freedom fighters wouldn't be in the comics, Sonic Boom would have never existed, the twitter would have been just a corporate mouthpiece rather than fun, and they would only have Sonic Team working on Mania, instead of having the fans work on it.

I think these days SEGA is willing to take Sonic out of their corporate comfort zone and engage with the fans on a more personal level. They have more of a need to keep people happy because that means that they are giving them more money. Seeing as how Mega Drive series was advertised and sold (not withstanding Diamond sales charts because they only show direct comic book store sales), it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for them to just not release it.

[Your Vest Friend]

Well for one, they did apparently contest the FFs being in the comic, and it was only Archie fighting that kept them in. For another, there's the mandate banning characters and things from the other media appearing in the comic, the Sonic X comic never being able to get a reprint ever, and the way they've kept their Sonic brands (classic/modern/Boom) extremely separate and distinct (with classic Sonic's appearances in Generations/Forces being more of a brand crossover ala Worlds Unite). 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

7 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Phineas and Ferb

Razor and T-Bone from Swat Kats

Bentley and Penelope in Sly Cooper (before the latter turned traitor)

Heck, Legend of Korra had five mechanics working in crossways with and against each other at several moments.

And that's just a small list.

Having one mechanic on a team doesn't preclude them from having another, dude. And it doesn't make the other useless--that's like saying we don't need any hero except Sonic to fight the bad guys, and ignoring what other characters can contribute.

And it's not like you can't make those techies have a specialty so that the other can shine elsewhere. For instance, Tails can specialize in aeronautics while Rotor can specialize in weaponry. They're are dozens of different disciples of engineering, so they can have another mechanic onboard to do other things.

 

Egon and Ray.

[Shadowlax]

So like as far as rotor being around I feel like i'm getting a lot of job descriptions rather than actually justifications for his character. Same with sally in many regards, i'm getting a lot of what they do , rather they why they are there. I've still yet to see like justification why both of those characters need to be directly on the team, when they can literally be in the background. Heck rotor could be replaced completely , if you need another genius consultant, there are quite a few low-key smart characters in sonic that could help that kind of completely negate his existence. 

So I ask the question, why is rotor here? What makes rotor compelling or what does rotor do , interestingly enough or you uniquely enough that requires him an only him to exist on this team. Because The comic book, pre and post reboot has never told me why that is. 

[HywelAtTheMoon]

Interesting Tweet from Flynn. Probably nothing though. Make of it what you will. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/IanFlynnBKC/status/847317226604470272

[Tylinos]

Yeah, from what I'd assume, all it really means is they probably haven't said to not submit for Sonic anymore.  Which is a positive sign, at least, even if it's mostly just a "we still don't know".

[Linkabel]

I think the concepts of the Freedom Fighters and the Kingdom of Acorn are not bad, but I would say that it's how they're used that maybe needed a little tweak.

 

And by a little tweak I mean not used them as much. This was definitely an issue before the reboot since obviously the series was based on SatAM and there was definitely an effort to shove the FFs into everything.

 

For example, did they really need to be part of the Adventure arc? Their inclusion into that storyline didn't bring anything else of interest that made it better.

 

But after the reboot there was a big chance to have Sonic not being tied to them all the time. So the Freedom Fighters will be this group like the Chaotix or Babylon Rogues that Sonic runs into every once in a while. Instead of the Kingdom of Acorn being Sonic’s home it's now another location like Station Square or South Island.

 

The only reason why I say this is because every time those elements didn't show up post-reboot, the stories felt more organic, fresh and less stuffed with characters.

 

[Soniman]

I never really had much problems with the FF inclusion even if I only really like bunnie, Antoine, and Nicole while the rest are just there for me. I just find it impressive how these characters from a 90s spin off cartoon managed to persist for so long to the modern day, even after Sega cracked down in comic and trimmed the non source material fat. 

[Meta77]

17 hours ago, BlueSky said:

I think that putting all technic stuff on one 8-year-old kid's shoulders would be an overkill in so many levels, it's good that there's someone else so they can divide the workload by their specialities. Plus I think it was a nice way to use him to balance the discussion over Angel Island vs. rest of the world's safety. And I actually feel emotions when thinking about said character so at least for me he isn't that dull. I feel I can say I like him in a way, I'm not expecting anybody else feeling anything about him, but I think that as long as there's at least some people that feel something for some character that character isn't really that unneeded. I think, for me, there would be a big blank space in the team without him or any other of the FF's permanently gone.

And I think all non-game FF's went trough some long design sessions, just pick up one of those GN's that have some design stuff on them for starters.

And now that I'm on it, if we were to kill Blaze, one of the more efficient ways would be a spontaneous magma fist I suppose.

And in what box can you put Blaze on exactly to make her an epitome of wave-particle-dualism? That cage was showing us too much of her for fitting into that role, even when she was kind of dying already out of shame or something...  

___

Tails needs Rotor for keeping him on the ground thus evading the fate of game-Tails becoming obsessed on his own talents in Lost World, it seems.  

Regardless of rails are he is a builder usually no one has to ask hum to build the things he does. He does it for for fun. Aka sonic adventure.  dang eggman is getting away. Oh hang on sonic looked what I made for fun. Oh yea plus it has a battle mode

[BlueSky]

3 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Regardless of rails are he is a builder usually no one has to ask hum to build the things he does. He does it for for fun. Aka sonic adventure.  dang eggman is getting away. Oh hang on sonic looked what I made for fun. Oh yea plus it has a battle mode

Well yeah, Sky Patrol always felt to me more of Rotor's baby than Tails' anyway, That would fit in this picture rather well.

___

Really this is growing tiresome. Here we are, fighting over whether we like game cast or other characters and which should have more of the rights to exist in the comics or not. There are some things I feel I'd like to point out now:

The problem, at least in some ways, seems to lie in the fact that some game characters haven't been used for a while, while we still also have characters that don't really "exist" in the games. We're liking different characters and sometimes it's hard to describe to the others why. I for one have many problems; I'm no native English speaker, I can't express myself so well in here than in face-to-face situation (that can actually be also a good thing, come to think of it) since smilies can take me only so far and sometimes, I just don't find the words to really describe why I feel some characters are important to me, be it on an active or a passive level. I think one way to say it would be to quote Sonic from that first Genesis Wave Storyarc where he says it just feels right to be with "those guys". I've tried, you don't know how hard I have but my brains just can't catch the words, it's more about some very abstract and not really that abstract of a feeling words can't really describe.

I can get it people want to see their favourites on the comics, so do I. That's one of the reasons why I read them. There's just some problems like who'll fit in what kind of a story and so on. There are things that just are, one of them is a story structure, not every person fits in every story they want to tell. I haven't seen that much of (some) of my favourites in the past issues but the stories were still interesting enough, for me at least, especially the SU arc.

I just, I just can't try and "protect" each and every character I hold dear in here any more since I can't find the right words. That makes me feel bad because I feel I should do something to speak up my mind but that's quite hard when it hits blank when it comes to the words. And what makes it worse is the feeling if there's nobody to say any other opinion those characters I enjoy seeing in the comics will eventually wanish from "existence" since why keep them around if "nobody really cares for them"?

Now I've said it. Please do continue, sorry if you feel I was acting too dramatically, I'm just so loss at words while not being really, I just don't have the right words at the moment, it seems.

[Meta77]

If ever my spelling seems off it's cause I'm on mobile and my phone is a little bit h and likes to autocorrect things after I typed them out @.@

[KoDaiko]

I think comic cast can happily exist with the reasoning of "well this is the comic universe, not the game universe". I think it's weird that certain comic characters exist/have a certain role because it lessens some of the existing character's appeal (Like Tails is good at mechs! becomes less significant since there is another mechanic working with him), but I don't mean "I hate this because they're useless".

I just think it's weird to suddenly apply RL logic to Sonic and say "Yes Tails had proven to be capable by himself, but he is a child so it must be too much for him to handle and it's more realistic to have multiple mechanics (so add Rotor in the same team sharing roles)" "Cream is strong, but she is a child so she obviously can't fight as much (but Tails, Charmy, and Marine are fine)". 

As people say many times, it would've been interesting if the FF was a completely separate team from Sonic& his friends. Then we could've seen Tails and Rotor cooperate on a project while also showing they are capable independently, or Sally to care for Cream because she THINKS she isn't capable but proven otherwise by the game cast and herself.

[Your Vest Friend]

To be fair, the idea that Cream isn't as much of a fighter appears to be at least in part a mandate of its own.

[Borvoc]

Tails is great with planes, and apparently mechs, but I think my willing suspension of disbelief would crumble if he built the entire Sky Patrol on his own. I know we're talking about talking, anthropomorphic animals here, but there are still limits to what the tone of the book will allow. That doesn't mean we couldn't have the book without Rotor—there would also just need to be either no Sky Patrol or an alternate explanation on how one kid built it using his screwdriver (i.e., he didn't).

[Your Vest Friend]

I think a fake Chaos Emerald is far more impressive than a ship, to be honest. 

[Borvoc]

30 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

I think a fake Chaos Emerald is far more impressive than a ship, to be honest. 

Nice SA2 reference. It would arguably take fewer materials, less contracted labor, and fewer "adult" business connections than flying fortress would, though. A fake Chaos Emerald still fits under the realm of what I'd allow for a genius hobbyist.

Also, I made a silly thing:

This has been my mental image of the situation for a few weeks now. If you don't get it, do an image search for "Days of Future Past" or "Uncanny X-Men 141".

Edit: I don't mean it as a rip on Archie or anything. It's just a funny mental image I've had in my mind.