Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I think the bigger challenge is finding something new that we haven’t already given House of Cards heat over.

Moreover, one thing to really appreciate about issue 175 and the follow ups is the acknowledgment that Sonic can’t do everything alone, both acknowledged by the story and the character himself. Sure, Sonic is powerful, but as this issue shows, even the powerful can fall—temporarily or not, it’s a wake up call for Sonic handling more than he can chew.

That Eggman lays it out goes to show why Sonic needs his friends. Eggman is a powerhouse, and sooner or later he’ll come up with something that even Sonic can’t defeat—and that’s where his friends come in to help.

Whether it’s Bunnie or Knuckles brute strength surpassing his, Rotor, Sally, Tails, or Nicole formula gadgets and plans of attacks, whatever the case it really gives the middle finger to Sonic being able to solo everything that comes at him.

I think it was moments like these that really made the games look lame in the narrative department.

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #178: House of Cards, Part 1 of 2

The amount of times I’ve talked and ranted about this particular story has to be somewhere in the double digits and I’m not convinced it’s in just the teens either. I’ve written full scale arias about how much I hate this story and looking back, I’m kind of surprised because I didn’t realize until now that it was actually much worse than I originally thought, mostly because the political stuff flew over my head way back when. Nowadays, I’m more in tune with the implications behind what’s going on and it’s a very troubling subject to tackle thanks to current events and me being a person of color observing how the country “handles” protesting and what not. 

To be honest, this is the first time that covering this story kind of scares me a bit but I have a feeling things will turn out okay. 

To this day, however, this story still has the most hateful, most anger inducing scene of Sonic the Hedgehog I’ve ever bore witness to before or since. I hate it so much that I have the panel saved to my computer as a reminder. I literally titled the image “House of Cards” too. You’ll know it when I get to it because I’m going to go OFF on it when we get there but I have a feeling you might have guessed what it is already.

Last thing I have to say is that, the most ironic thing about this whole thing is that seeing the cover of this story is the thing that finally pushed me over the edge towards wanting to buy the Sonic comics. I wanted to see what could have led Sonic and Tails to fight so incredibly badly. It’s so ironic it hurts.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Letters: John Workman
Colors: Jason Jensen
Editor: Mike Pellerito

Tension between Sonic and Tails has been very much a thing that’s been hinted at for a while now. The two of them haven’t been the best of besties since Sonic returned from space for a number of reasons, mainly that Sonic’s a bit of an asshole and extremely unaware of just how big of one he’s been.

The big tragedy with this story is that, originally, Ian Flynn wanted this to be a much longer arc where the political warfare and discussions were more fleshed out and given ample room to breathe so that we could actually get something that didn’t come off as weirdly amateurish and dated as this.

I’d very much like to see what that original arc was supposed to be like. I don’t know if it would have answered for all the problems this story has but I have to imagine it would have fixed at least a few of these issues. Namely, a longer arc would probably take into account more than just seven characters. That way we could actually care more about the conflict from the point of view of people we cared more about. If Amadeus and Rosemary were supposed to be getting a huge character study throughout this story, it would probably necessitate being longer than this too.

I mean, it’s supposed to be a political thing that talks about how the Acorn Kingdom has been this very bad, sloppily handled monarchy and what can be done to fix it. Seeing which of the characters took the side of the monarchy and which took the side of democracy would have been interesting. Though, it probably should be expected that the FREEDOM FIGHTERS wouldn’t be for an absolute constitutional monarchy but not according to the story we actually got if Sonic, the biggest and brightest example of the most FREE motherfucker out there, is simping for it.

Yeah, Sonic’s a huge simp for the kingdom in this story. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It’s… painful to read. 

The first three pages I read ended with me sighing really hard. It’s amazing how much worse this is now that I actually know what’s happening here politically.

You don’t even really need a game like Sonic and the Black Knight, that tells the tale of Sonic dethroning and slaying a king, to know that this is a very alien thing for Sonic to say.

Hell, this is the guy who said “Fuck due process” and broke out of prison when he was mistaken for Shadow. Fucking Tails invaded the military base to help him do it. 

I think reading this story had the unfortunate side-effect of forever coloring how I viewed Archie Sonic from now until forever. It’s a shame because it’s just two issues but it made such a heavy impact on me that to this day, some 10+ years later, no matter what Sonic does, I can’t shake off the image of Sonic just being a soldier for this kingdom.

Amadeus starts the issue by leading a protest outside the Civic Center and now Nicole is showing it to Tails and his mom. Rosemary already knew this was going to happen, of course. Her reasoning that this is the perfect time because they’re safe from Eggman right now is somewhat credible. If anything would spur me on towards the idea of change being necessary is the massive close call that happened in #175. I guess the timing could be debated by some but I don’t care to do that.

While that attack didn’t directly have much to do with Max, there are plenty of examples of that tyrannical dumbass trusting incredibly evil motherfuckers and dicking over his own kingdom. He trusted Warlord Julian and paved the way for all those roboticized people and the birth of the tyrant Dr. Robotnik. Then he perpetuated the problem by decreeing that the Robians all be destroyed back when he was becoming loonier than usual through some magic corruption or some shit. He trusted Kodos, who was also an evil, axe-wielding motherfucker. His fling with Ixis Naugus will lead to another political snafu happening down the line.

Even Geoffrey, his most trusted secret service member, will turn out to not have been someone to trust. This guy is fucking awful and he surrounds himself with villains. 

So, already I’m on Amadeus’ side. To sweeten the deal though, Sonic decides to not have any tact whatsoever and just blurts out how much of an idiot he thinks Tails’ dad is while both Tails and his mom are in the room. 

His big dumb blue face has this massive question mark speech bubble hovering over him as he watches Tails’ mom lead her CRYING son outside so that they can have some air.

Nicole has to remind him that Amadeus is Tails’ father and Sonic says that he gets that but he doesn’t like that Tails risked a lot to get him back only for him to pull this “stunt”. 

It’s weird because you’ve pulled much worse “stunts” than this Sonic. Some of them were even in defiance of the kingdom you’re suddenly a super simp for now. I don’t… understand this.

Nicole brings up the obvious tension between the two of them and Sonic just blows it off, saying that because they’re like brothers, they’re fine. Brothers don’t fight and apparently you can just do whatever you want, not talk about it, and leave your little brother a crying wreck and ignore it because that’s what a caring brother does.

Case in point, watch as Sonic literally runs IN BETWEEN Rosemary and Tails, kicking up smoke in their faces without even looking at either of them.

It’s like… goddamn.

I know we need to have Sonic and Tails fight but I feel like this could have been achieved without the extra douchiness. Tails already has a reason to be upset at Sonic. It’s a very dumb reason but hey, it came without the addendum of Sonic being like “PROTESTING IS DUMB! DON’T FIGHT FOR FREEDOM FOLKS! TOW THE LINE AND LICK THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY! I’M SONIC AND I HATE FREEDOM! YUCK!”

Anyway, Sonic manages to catch up to Knuckles before he heads back to Angel Island. I do like the dialogue exchange that happens here. Knuckles and the characters cover all the bases so that it’s made explicitly clear why Knuckles feels the need to head back to Angel Island and why he wishes to do it alone. The main reason is that it’s too dangerous, that’s why he’s going solo.

I like the part where Vector not only agrees with Julie-Su’s concerns but adds on that his main reasoning for wanting to go alone made no sense.

Knuckles clarifies that his dad will be there to back him up and that he needs to settle things with him anyway. Also, he puts a nice bow on the original decision he made to stay here instead of the island. Now that New Mobotropolis is here and it’s got a snazzy forcefield that can defend itself against the Egg Fleet, he can risk some damage control on Angel Island.

He uses the Guiding Star Gem and a warp ring to head off. That’ll be the last we see of Knuckles until this story ends and we get yet another one of THE best stories in Archie Sonic.

Back to House of Cards though.

King Elias goes to visit Amadeus Prower in the Detention Center.

Yup. That’s right. Dude got fucking arrested for leading a protest. Oh how wonderful.

As a rare, positive aside, I like the way this scene opens with Elias walking in and getting heckled by all the bad guys they stuffed into these glass boxes like they’re livestock.

I especially love Mogul here though. Not only is he barely able to fit in his cell but he’s got a mountain of books that, I guess he requested and was given, and is occupying his time by reading them.

Then he stalls the villain’s heckling by threatening them with a telepathic brain blast if they don’t shut the fuck up which earns a thanks from the boy king here.

Mogul is the best. Elias kind of ruins the good vibes I got from him with his last line there.

Right off the bat, he refers to what Amadeus did as a riot. 

These words being used incorrectly by an authority figure is something that I’m not too comfortable witnessing here. It stings even more that it’s being said by my good boi, Elias here. I know the real reason he’s the acting king has nothing to do with his own desires, and we’ll get into that later, so it just lends credence to Amadeus’ side. The acting king isn’t even someone who wants the job and has no idea how to properly be one.

Yet despite that I would still take him over the previous king because he’s at least going to show himself as willing to listen and will in fact take what’s about to be said to him by this war veteran to heart.

EXPERT LEVEL TAKEDOWN! C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

I didn’t understand a word of what Amadeus was saying here back when I first read this, sadly. Despite that, I was still on his side because of Sonic’s behavior and my distaste for this kingdom.

However, reading all THAT just now felt like all the shit I was complaining about pre-Ian Flynn up till now was just completely justified within the text. It felt good.

Amadeus is 100% correct about everything he said here. The Acorn Kingdom did lead everyone into a fucking war, was responsible for creating Robotnik (and paved the way for plenty other villains too), lost both it’s old homes, and now has someone in charge who doesn’t know how to lead a nation (and didn’t even fucking WANT to).

If the nanites thing didn’t happen they’d be shit out of luck. Their city would be a pile of smoldering ash and there’d be little the Acorn lineage could do to help them.

Amadeus wants to change things because he learned what democracy was on some far off alien planet. It’s weird but hey, whatever works.

Also, sorry Elias, but people chanting for you to step down isn’t a riot. Maybe marching INTO the palace, attacking people, and destroying shit would have been but that’s not what happened and if it did, we weren’t shown it and it wasn’t talked about. 

This is just more proof that shit is fucked. If Amadeus is literally only in here because he gathered some nameless people to chant for the king to step down then you’re in the wrong, not him. 

The entire Acorn Kingdom is in the wrong though. It’s existence is wrong. 

It needs to stop. This cannot continue. 

This page is a good example of how well done a political arc could have been handled too. It’s a very well written and completely agreeable screed that Amadeus has here. I know where Ian lies politically and he wouldn’t be on board with having Sonic or Elias refer to protests as “riots” were he to write this story nowadays. He probably didn’t even fully realize the implications of what he was writing back then but it matters not. He doesn’t like this story either and is on the side of the people who don’t like it. We’re united in our dissenting opinions of this tale, which is something to be grateful for.

He’s no Frank Miller, thank God.

We cut to Sonic who's just on his merry way, observing the city, running through it, admiring the scenery. Dododo, nothing’s wrong here. He’s a happy boy and everything’s fine~!
After this, Sonic no longer has the right to tease Knuckles for his aloofness.

He comes across a sulking Elias, sitting on a bench and mulling over all the 100% correct things that Amadeus said.

It’s here where Sonic tries to cheer Elias up and assure him that he’s doing a great job. Elias officially cuts the bullshit though and says that he isn’t and outright admits that he WANTS to give this kingdom to the people and would gladly do so if it weren’t for… guess who?

Go on, guess.

If you said his shitty, asshole, “the old ways were better” rancid as hell father than you win.

King Max shows up and does NOT hold back on the assholery. It’s like WOW.

The difference between the way Ian is portraying Max here and the way past writers have portrayed him is that it’s very intentional and clear that you’re supposed to fucking hate Max here. He’s leaning into the fact that he’s a furry tub of expired milk with old traditions and values baked into every fiber of his being. He’s the exact kind of person who’d feel threatened by all the changes happening in the current era. He wouldn’t respect anyone’s pronouns nor would he be very fond of his daughter being into anyone other than a man. 

His reaction to Elias’ concern for Amadeus and how he’s speaking for the people is met with King Max shouting that they can speak all they want. “That doesn’t change the fact that we have ruled for hundreds of years and we’ll do so for hundreds more!”

Ah. Spoken like a true tyrannical dictator. 

He even has the nerve to say that Amadeus’ trial would be a waste of time, not because he shouldn’t even BE on trial, but because he wants to skip right to the punishment. He also wants that punishment to be SEVERE and he wants it done for the other “conspirators”.

Even Super Simp Sonic has to point out that maybe arresting HALF the city isn’t a good idea but King Max blows him off, acting like he doesn’t even remember him. When Sonic lays out all the things he did to save this man’s life and his kingdom, King Max is just like “I suppose”

Then Sonic in his head is like, “Suppose? Suppose what?”

It’s a pretty funny exchange because King Max just doubles down on his desire for half the city to be punished without a trial and the only reason he gives is because his shitty family has ruled for hundreds of years and they’ll continue to rule like shit for hundreds more. Apparently, even if half the city has been arrested leaving him with very little to rule over, that’s good enough for him.

Then poor Elias is just ushered back to the castle by his father. Like, he’s supposed to be the king and yet he’s taking orders from this man. Elias doesn’t really yet realize that this is supposed to be up to him and his desire to please his shitty dad is clouding his judgement. It’s like back when he agreed to let Geoffrey tell him how to rule all those issues ago. It couldn’t be any more clear that Elias does not want this.

The ONLY reason he’s going along with this is because of his dad. He wants to form a connection with him. He wants him to be proud of him. His shit awful father has had one foot in the grave for so long that maybe he feels if he does right by him, he’ll leave this world with at least a couple fond memories of his son.

That said, Elias knows the right thing to do. Amadeus knows the right thing to do. They both agree with what has to be done… but they’re going to fight about it anyway because…?

What’s even more upsetting is that, despite that scene making it clear as day that King Max is cuckoo for cocoa puffs and SO WRONG THAT IT HURTS, Sonic ends that scene by going “After all that whose side do I want to be on?”

Oh gee! What a tough decision. Does Sonic the Hedgehog, supposed freedom fighter extraordinaire, want to be on the side that arrests HALF THE FUCKING CITY or does he want to take the side of democracy and his little brother?

...Nah. Better keep Amadeus in prison. 

Sonic apparently doesn’t have enough influence to talk with Elias and help push him into doing what Amadeus asked of him since Elias literally just admitted that’s what he wants to do. But when has Sonic the Hedgehog ever advocated for doing what your heart tells you is right? 

Sigh.

Sonic really is the biggest problem with this story, which is funny because the title page claims he’s “stuck in the middle again” but he’s not. He picks a side and it’s the wrong side.

Tails, meanwhile, continues to act more like a Freedom Fighter, doing what he did in Adventure 2 and breaking into a high security facility to bust someone who's been wrongly imprisoned out of jail. In Adventure 2, it was his brother Sonic. Here, it’s his dad Amadeus.

Mogul continues to be the best. Somehow his cell got bigger but we’ll ignore that for the sake of complimenting the way he starts off his speech by giving Tails his props and then finishes with a clamp down on his “illegal” activity. He’s an expert talker.

Now then, seeing this happen, I can’t help but wonder just how much of the politics Tails actually cares about. There’s no doubt in my mind that Tails is willing to go to the ends of the Earth and back for his parents and what they believe in but that doesn’t necessarily mean Tails is doing this because he’s for the cause. He might just be doing this because THEY believe in it.

I wouldn’t know because what we find out about Tails’ motivations later on won’t have ANYTHING to do with the political stuff happening right now but that comes later.

Right now, Sonic has to be woken up by Nicole since Tails disrupted her disruption of his break-in earlier.

YEESH! Yet another reason why I wouldn’t want to live here. Nicole seems like a nice person but how the fuck is someone supposed to sleep soundly at night knowing that she can just appear in their rooms whenever she wants? She can watch you while you sleep or while you have sex or while you’re in the bathroom…

It’s fucking wild man. This place has problems! 

Nicole informs Sonic that someone’s trying to break out General Prower and apparently that’s like SUPER SERIOUS BUSINESS to him because in the next panel he’s just gone. Nicole doesn’t even get a chance to tell him who’s doing it.

Come to find out, it won’t matter to Sonic any fucking way.

That’s not the face of a conflicted guy. Not one bit.

Rosemary tries to protect Amadeus, saying that he’s done nothing wrong.

Sonic instantly gets on my bad side again by bringing up that fucking treason thing… AGAIN.

I’ll concede that maybe the last time he brought it up, it may have been in a more joking manner but I remain convinced that he only brought it up because it was a legitimate concern at the back of his mind. I would have preferred it to be WAY at the back of his mind but now we’ve gotten to THIS story where we see that, no, it’s actually at the forefront of his mind all of a sudden. He’s not kidding around or being playful here. 

He considers leading a peaceful protest against the king to be treason.

You know what? Maybe it is.

If that’s the case, then all the more reason for the king to step down and for this monarchy to DIE.

Sonic, you’re a Freedom Fighter who lives in a society that tosses people in jail for peaceful protesting. You were PRESENT for a conversation between the former, old ass tyrant king and the son he’s manipulating where he said that he wanted his son to toss HALF THE CITY in prison. By abiding by Amadeus’ sentence, he’s agreeing with the side that believes that half the city should be arrested without a trial because they wanted their freedom.

This is like, Bizarro World Sonic or something. It couldn’t be more against what he’s about if it tried. 

There isn’t a hint of sympathy or thought put behind what Sonic is saying here. He just blows Rosemary off when she points out that half the city agrees with them. Hell, the other half might agree too but are afraid to speak up because the former king is a monster that once tried to decree that all Robians be destroyed and is now trying to arrest half of them for speaking out against his dictatorship.

King Max is just furry Dr. Eggman.

Sonic can’t see that though. He doesn’t care that a lot of people agree with their cause. He just says it’s the wrong way to go about it. 

He doesn’t offer up a RIGHT way to go about it, by the way. No, no. He just says it’s wrong and that’s it. 

Fuck off and fuck you, Sonic. Holy shit man.

Then the big scene happens. 

The one panel that to this day remains the absolute worst thing I’ve ever heard Sonic the Hedgehog say. You’d think it’d be something from before Issue #160 or something from one of the badly written games but no. Ironically, it exists because of one of the best writers this series has ever had. 

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh…

…

...

… So… when Rosemary brings up that Tails might be a bit sad that Sonic is helping to keep his father in prison, Sonic, behind his best friend’s back (he thinks) says this shit…

I had to pause here to catch my bearings a little bit. I was searching as hard as I could for the correct words to describe the utter disgust I felt reading that panel way back when and the disdain I still have for it now.

I don’t think the words exist for how bad this is. At this point, this isn’t Sonic. I can’t imagine any version of Sonic the Hedgehog saying anything this cruel about anyone, let alone his best friend and adoptive little brother Tails. 

Like, what the fuck is he smiling about? Why the hell is he grinning and pointing at himself while he’s in the middle of saying something so awful? Does he take delight in what he’s saying? That absolutely has to be the case. 

“The kid WORSHIPS me,” he says. He’s proud of that? Not only is that not true and a gross way to view their relationship but when has Sonic ever been the type to WANT to be worshipped? What the fuck?

This isn’t Sonic. Demolishing his character isn’t worth it for the sake of getting these two to fight but I guess it had to happen. 

I like the idea of seeing these two fight. It’s literally the reason I decided to get into the comics. I saw the cover of these two fighting and I wanted to see how it happened. However, if it happens again, it can’t be allowed to happen like this anymore. 

I know Sonic can be a bit of a snarky guy but there’s a difference between that and being a teasing jerk who doesn’t care about any of the words coming out of his mouth.

Thankfully, we follow up the worst panel in the book with the best one.

Oh thank God. 

I lack the ability to reach through a book and punch someone in the face so I’m glad Tails did it himself.

Yeah, when Sonic came, Tails snuck into the vent and ambushed him from behind. Tails tells his parents to run while he handles him. Rosemary really doesn’t want to do that but Amadeus points out that their son has beaten villains that could demolish the armies he commanded and says they’d just be in his way.

They decide they need to finish this tonight so they decide to head home to pick something up and then make their way to the Acorn Kingdom castle.

Meanwhile, Tails bashes Sonic into the side of Nack’s animal cage. Sonic tries to order Tails to cut it out, calling him “Fur-ball” as a tell that he’s treating him a bit more like an enemy now. Tails refuses and demands he put his dukes up.

Mogul can’t even pretend to be above delighting in what’s happening here though. Either Sonic chooses to be the guy who gets beat up by a kid or he chooses to be the guy that beats up children. Sonic chooses to beat up children.

So, there you go. The end of Issue #178. 

Sonic’s a fucking asshole.

Yeah, it seemed hard to believe at the time of me reading this for the first time but this story can indeed get worse. The implications of what’s going on and how this is all being handled juxtaposed with what’s happening in the real world currently really makes all the times Sonic calls the protest a “riot” and his boot licker mentality of this, quite frankly, evil lineage just leaves an intense sour taste in my mouth. The book knows that King Max and Sonic are in the wrong, that’s why Sonic is going to end up apologizing and King Max isn’t going to get his way… but the thing Sonic apologizes for won’t have anything to do with the political nonsense he spouted today and King Max not getting what he wants happens after a stupid, pointless fight and a resolution that I remember finding to be the most infuriating and insulting way to end a story like this back in the day.

The silver lining to that might be that my opinion on that resolution may actually soften in comparison to the stuff I saw happen in this issue. I didn’t know it was this bad but yeah, it’s really, really bad.

 

Sonic X - Issue #33: Meteor Madness

I need a Sonic X break. So, at a glance, this cover looks rather impressive but, uh, a lot of the sizes and proportions are a little questionable. Especially “Big” the Cat there. Apparently Big only goes up to Eggman’s knee? His official size has him slightly taller than Eggman. Meanwhile, Vector is somehow way smaller than Big. Like, he is slightly shorter than Big but he’s tiny here. He shouldn't be able to comfortably sit on Eggman’s tummy like that and barely take up space on him. I could go on but I think I made my point. There are better character collage covers and better Sonic X covers than this one, even if I kind of like the idea behind it.

Spoiler

Writer: Joe Edkin
Pencils: David Hutchison
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Jason Jensen
Letters: John Workman
Editor/Managing editor: Mike Pellerito

The problem with sizes kind of bleeds into the next page, as does a little bit of an issue with perspective. Here, Vanilla looks more like Cream’s older sister than her mom and Vector is standing… either really far away from Sonic and Amy or close but like on a higher plane of grass? It’s hard to tell.

I think the perspective might actually be fine but I think what’s throwing me off is the grass. For some reason it looks like it’s been sectioned off into squares and I’m getting this image in my head that Knuckles and Vector are actually standing on a slightly elevated square of grass or something.

The thing they’re talking about is a bit weird too. Remember when the Chaotix’s house just disappeared way back when? Well, they’re talking about how strange it is that it just came back too… off-screen. 

Why did this happen? I don’t know. Seems like a really weird thing that the comic did and had no real follow-up for so they just kind of… doubled back on it? I guess? I think?

There is a bit of a funny joke about them talking about the really cool Chaotix adventures they had while they were gone.

Me being me, I would have loved to have seen those…!

Goddammit.

Espio asks Knuckles what he does for fun and he talks about the adventure he had with Hawk. Charmy does the same for Sonic and we get a scene of Sonic lying to children when he says he doesn’t like to brag. I guess it’s better than him beating up children.

Then Sonic talks about all the high action adventures he had literally the day before and caps off all the stuff he talked about by saying it was a slow day. Har.

This prompts Chris to have a chat with Cream about how he wishes he had his own stories to tell. Cream points out that he gets into exciting adventures all the time but Chris just says they only happen because he’s with Sonic and his friends. 

Chuck, who’s on the roof looking through a telescope for some reason, yells for everyone to get on the roof to see what he’s looking at.

Turns out there’s a meteor headed for Earth!

Except it’s not a big deal because it’s going to land harmlessly.

Except it IS a big deal because there’s a Chaos Emerald inside of it! Oh no!

… Wait, what?

Huh? 

How?

Chuck says that according to his “readings” it’s going to land harmlessly at the South Pole and his “readings” also say that there’s a Chaos Emerald inside of it. What an insanely fancy telescope to be able to tell all that, for one.

However, the bigger issue is the confusion I’m suffering through trying to figure out how the hell a Chaos Emerald got stuck inside a meteor headed for Earth! Like, WHAT?! This comic is supposed to be happening in conjunction with the show right? So is this like a special emerald we didn’t see before that’s exclusive to this issue or did one of the Chaos Emerald warp inside a meteor at random at one point in the show’s history and we never knew about it?

Well, Chris gets an idea in a bottom panel that makes it look like he’s staring into your soul. Everyone else doesn’t look very good either.

David Hutchinson’s art isn’t my favorite. There’s parts where it looks okay, and even good, but a lot of the time I’m getting a very strange “geometric shapes” feeling from the characters here.

Chris’ idea is to form teams to recover the emerald themselves before Eggman gets it. That way they can have a nice friendly competition while trying to save the world. 

Chris says he’ll be a captain and Sonic and Knuckles can be the other ones. Knuckles doesn’t want to do this because he wants to protect the Master Emerald so Vector tells him to bring it with him. Knuckles says he prefers working alone so Vector says to just be his own team and then Vector says he’ll be a fourth captain.

Then Knuckles finally says fine.

Careful Knuckles, your Shadow is showing a bit.

So then, the teams are chosen.

I like this idea.

I like the idea of the characters splitting off into teams they don’t usually end up in for the sake of mixing and matching. A team I’ve always wanted to see was Sonic, Silver, Omega, and Charmy. I can just see the four of them approaching a convenience store at 1 AM to pick up provisions before they go on a car trip towards the rest of their adventure.

It could happen.

Sonic’s team consists of himself, Tails, and Big. 

Vector’s team is himself, Espio, and Amy.

Chris chooses Cream and Charmy and when Charmy asks why he says he wants to prove that three children can beat all these scary, overpowered monsters. He doesn’t put it that way but I will because that’s what they are.

Sonic races off as soon as the word go is said. He makes it to the South Pole first right as the meteor is about to crash land and holds out his hands… but slips on the ice and slides away. Whoops.

The meteor then crashes through the ice right in front of the other teams that somehow managed to keep up with Sonic enough to be here at the exact same time as him. 

I dunno. I guess they needed a fighting chance somehow.

Amy says she’s gonna beat Sonic because he snubbed her. Meanwhile, we see Knuckles claiming this is a silly game while literally hauling the Master Emerald on his back via a thick rope. It’s a funny image but he’s committed as hell. That’s admirable.

Big sits down and is about to literally fish it out of the water before someone flies directly into the SOUTH POLE ICE WATER and yanks the meteor out, acting like that was just a regular dip in the pool.

She found out about the meteor because she’s a spy who works for G.U.N, she says. 

Yeah, sure. I’ll allow it. Why not?

Tails tosses Sonic a ring and Sonic blasts the meteor out of her hands and it lands into the side of a cave. Here, we see that Chris has finally arrived at the motherfucking South Pole carried via Charmy and Cream.

It’s very silly and thinking about it too hard will indeed fry your brain.

Sonic bursts in and races out with the meteor in hand, saving Chris’ team the trouble of having to do it themselves but there’s now the little problem of Sonic being the one who has the meteor now… so… not good.

I know what you’re thinking though. What about Team Rocke--erm Team Eggman? 

Well, Eggman is just… chilling in Brazil.

Yeah. 

It’s a very strange scene but an amusing one nonetheless. Although, I can’t help but notice that Eggman’s “mud bath” is looking very watery.

We then get more snippets of this race to bring the emerald back home and it’s wild and increasingly more ridiculous.

These guys are traversing across the world map like it’s a mere couple blocks of running.

I love how Sonic is just standing there in that final panel, pointing at himself with his fist at his hip. He must have just gotten done taking that pose while saying that line in the previous panel only for Knuckles to fucking bolt and leave him in the dust before he could get out of it.

How insane is it that they were just casually in Argentina? Why can’t I move that fast? I wish teleportation was a real thing. I preferably wish it were a reliable thing too so I didn’t have to worry about my molecules getting scrambled or whatever.

The chase continues with a series of Tom and Jerry antics that sees the meteor hopping from one person to another.

Rouge manages to take the meteor when she kicks the Master Emerald off Knuckles’ back so that it goes tumbling in the forest and he rushes after it. 

Then Espio uses his invisibility to snag it and toss it to Vector.

Then Vector tries to rush off with it but Big creates a tripwire using his fishing pole and gets Vector to fall into the same pool of water that Eggman is relaxing in because they’re in Brazil now.

They don’t seem to be paying any attention to Eggman here since Eggman has cucumbers over his eyes and is listening to music.

My dude is really hairy.

It’s here where the mud in the mud bath finally shows itself as Eggman gets covered in it when Vector makes his splash landing.

Vector races out and Eggman stands up, soaked from head to toe in mud. He then yells for his lackeys, who are of course playing cards, to come out and tell him what happened.

The meteor hot potato continues while this happens. Sonic managed to grab the meteor when Vector tripped but then a bunch of monkeys started throwing coconuts at him and Rouge grabbed it while he was distracted.

Then Tails shows up and literally says “YOINK” when he snags it from Rouge after distracting her by saying there’s a run in her stockings… but then Rouge flies back at Tails when she realizes she isn’t wearing stockings.

Tails has stopped, however, because Amy has emerged from a tree brandishing her hammer. Tails is about to be all shy about getting hit with that thing but then Rouge… I guess just crash lands into the two of them and they fall.

I’m not too sure what happened here. I don’t think Rouge would just Usain Bolt her way into them like that. 

Sonic has it again though.

He races back to the Thorndyke mansion with it and Chuck is about ready to declare him the winner when they open the meteor up and see that there’s no emerald inside…!

Rouge says “Fuck this” and flies off.

They momentarily contemplate whether or not Chuck’s “readings” were wrong but he assures them that his “readings” were off the charts. His telescope is just THAT advanced you guys. It has Chaos Emerald detecting technology in it… for SOME reason.

Anyway, Chris’ team shows up last. A couple of scenes ago, when Charmy lamented not being able to catch up, Chris said they wouldn’t have to. Turns out the reason is because the Chaos Emerald fell out of the meteor while Sonic and Knuckles were fighting and Chris just picked it up. Then the three of them just strolled their way through Brazil like it weren’t no thang until they made it back home.

Everybody celebrates their win, being super good sports about it. Also, Tails’ tongue is blue because it was left uncolored and it’s blending in with the background.

Stuff like this I like a lot. I love the idea of splitting into teams that you don’t normally see and I love the idea of seeing these guys engage in healthy competition with one another. It’s something we shockingly don’t see a lot of. If there were a party game with Sonic characters that gave us full access to the cast instead of like… 10 or 15 of them then I could see this being something they could take more advantage of. I wasn’t a huge fan of the art in a lot of spots but it got the job done at the very least. It wasn’t outright offensively awful or horrendous to look at like a lot of the early Archie stuff. What a nice little excursion that was. Now back to hell.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #179: House of Cards, Part 2 of 2

I actually like the way this cover looks. It’s a very striking image. Just seeing an upset Sonic rip wanted posters of Tails’ smiling face in half makes you think about stuff… like how much better of a story this could have been for one. I like to imagine a world where Tails was on the run and Sonic, now more disillusioned with the state of things, was taking down these wanted posters and ripping them in half because he chose to stand by his best buddy. 

I would think that’s why he’s doing that here but at first glance, my brain figured he was just ripping this image apart because it has Tails’ face on it and he hates Tails now. That’s what Sonic behavior in the previous issue would lead you to believe. Either way, this doesn’t end up happening so I’m left with a cover that leaves me wondering where the story would have gone if it did. 

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Penciler: Tracy Yardley
Inker: Jim Amash
Letterer: John Workman
Colorist: Jason Jensen
Editor: Mike Pellerito

We begin the issue with Sonic and Tails still arguing and fighting. I actually do really like how these scenes look and the setting of the villains getting to watch these heroes beat each other up is delightful as well. The fact that Tails doesn’t give a shit about airing his dirty laundry and feelings regarding Sonic in front of these hooligans is great. You know that no matter how this resolves the image of Sonic being beaten up and smacked around by this little pupper is never going to leave any of their minds.

Seeing Tails just lose it and scream his head off about how much Sonic sucks and how long he’s been bottling these feelings up is really cathartic too. It’s honestly kind of impossible for me not to be on his side here. In the best of times I tend to prefer Tails over Sonic but that’s especially true in this book where Sonic’s more jerky side has been cranked up way past 11 and his tendency to be a douchebag isn’t called out nearly as often as it should be, instead being taken as a class act of his that makes him charming.

It’s especially egregious as far as this story goes though. I know that Sonic isn’t doing much to fight back, instead choosing to either dodge or run off while he talks with Tails about what’s happening here, despite his declaration last issue that he’s going to give him a pounding. 

Despite that I’m still glad he’s getting his butt kicked around because these actions aren’t going to make up for him smirking and pointing at himself while declaring his supposed little brother would get over his parents rotting in jail because he worships him. At this point, choosing not to ALSO beat him up is the very least he can do.

It also continues to be a little mystifying that Sonic literally can not think of a single thing wrong he’s done to Tails. 

Tails is saying some pretty agreeable stuff here. I love the way his tails are being drawn too. It kind of reminds me of the werehog’s arms a bit. I totally believe they can extend that far thanks to how the art depicts them. If the games had better animation, this could easily be incorporated into them, but that'll never happen. Not even just because Tails isn’t allowed to be playable anymore. Even in cutscenes, he’s literally the only character in Sonic Forces we never see fighting. The one confrontation with an enemy he has is infamous amongst the fanbase because he tucks his head down and sticks his butt out to Chaos. Meanwhile, we’ll be shown a scene of all the other characters fighting off an army of them, including a six-year-old little boy, two years younger than him.

Back to this story though, he’s intense and fierce and it’s really alluring. Seeing him so pissed off at Sonic, under any other circumstance (aside from Lost World where it happens for no reason) would have been great but because I know the circumstances there’s a bit of a polluted air to it that I can’t fully shake off.

Still, it’s easier to get behind in this exact moment if only because of how aloof Sonic is to his own behavior. Even if he SOMEHOW isn’t aware of how shittily he handled the Fiona situation the fact that he’s confused by why Tails is so upset with him when he’s denounced his parents on more than one occasion in this story and is literally fighting for the side that wants them locked away astounds me. 

Alright, so, we cut back to Tails’ parents to witness them managing to make it inside the palace very easily. Rosemary is still concerned for Tails but Amadeus tells her again that he’s fine. He’s right too but it’s still nice that Rosemary’s concern remains.

Because they were so easily able to enter the castle, Amadeus sees this as an invitation and he’s correct about that too as we shift to a scene where Elias is preparing for a “confrontation” with Amadeus. His wife has to point out that his statement that he believes Amadeus will be reasonable is hard to understand when he is locking her and their child in a safe room. She doesn’t mention the weapons he’s bringing along with him either but there’s those too.

After telling Nicole to keep Meg and Alexis safe and to not wake up his shit-awful father, Amadeus arrives right on time where we see Elias finally give his rebuttal to all the correct things that Amadeus said earlier.

Elias, my boy, you hardly know your daddy. I’m sorry but it’s true. I know you’re only speaking on his behalf because you desperately want daddy to love you and approve of you now that you’ve re-entered his life but this is a bigger issue than that and I know you know that too. 

The reasons your dad nearly lost his life all those times is because he’s an idiot that kept putting evil lunatics in charge and likely couldn’t see through their evil machinations because he’s a tyrant himself. I know you weren’t there so I’ll also say that the heroes of this city who spent their childhoods fighting weren’t doing it for the “Acorn title” or whatever. That title has no reverence as far as I’m concerned. I’m pretty sure they were just fighting for their freedom. 

Like it or not, “freedom” isn’t really something that’s being wholly exemplified by the kingdom the way it stands. I could understand if the King was someone who unconditionally loved his people and allowed them to live their lives however they wanted and was simply a figurehead but King Max literally said in your presence that he wants to lock away half the city because they SAID something he didn’t like. It isn’t even because they attacked, destroyed, or hurt someone. They were protesting.

There’s no defending this but Elias tries his darndest too anyway and he combats the points the Prower’s bring up with really flimsy arguments.

This fight is pointless. They both agree with one another and they both know what needs to happen but they’re fighting anyway because...  I dunno. Elias can’t set aside the daddy issues and that’s worth getting into a sword fight over…?

His defense of his dad continues to not make any sense. He says he can’t dissolve the kingdom and hand it over to the angry masses because “that makes no sense” but fails to provide a reason for why it wouldn’t because he knows that’s bullshit. At the end of this story he’s going to do almost EXACTLY that too so… there IS no actual argument here.

This isn’t to say that Amadeus is infallible here either. The guy busted into the palace with a sword at his hip and I guess his plan to dethrone the king is to just… I dunno. Defeat him in battle? Short of killing him, what's that going to do exactly? Is there some sort of code of honor that says thou shalt hand over the kingdom should he lose in a duel… or something?

Contrary to what Sonic said before, I do think Amadeus’ original idea of rallying the people has more merit to it because it clearly GOT to Elias. He DOES agree with Amadeus. I keep stressing that because it continues to highlight how dumb it is that the two of them are fighting right now. 

They shouldn’t keep this as a monarchy and they shouldn’t be meeting in the middle because neither side wants that. Elias said last issue that he’d gladly hand it over to the people if it weren’t for his shitty, manipulating dad and Amadeus wants him to do that. 

I feel like if this issue leaned in a little more on Elias’ conflicting emotions regarding his dad and had him just reach this conclusion naturally, it would have been a more satisfying emotional development.

But nope! We gotta see em fight cause that’s how we do things in Anthro-Comic land.

I also remember reading this back in the day and being really confused as to which character was which sometimes. They’re both the same shade of brown and they're both wearing blue and their ears and the shapes of their faces are so similar. You’d be forgiven for thinking they were the same species. They even have the same kind of tails. It’s really weird. 

We cut back to Sonic and Tails’ fight and finally Sonic decides to hit Tails back.

This panel was even more unbelievable to me then the one where Tails punches Sonic in the face at the time. I kinda like it.

The villain's commentary remains entertaining but Sonic wants to take away my nice things so he decides he’s had enough of them and takes the fight outside. There, Tails continues to attack Sonic while POURING out all the stuff he’s had problems with Sonic up to this point. He begins with his feelings regarding being left behind on missions but then it just continues to escalate.

I also remember not liking Sonic’s response to the things Tails is saying too. Re-reading them, I still feel the same way.

The line “Dude, I tease everybody. It’s what I do” still rubs me the wrong way. Like, a lot.

I know he makes the addendum that he doesn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings but… that’s literally what teasing is supposed to do?

Like, I understand playful ribbing but when someone is outright telling you that they don’t like it when you make fun of them or say mean things about them and you refuse to stop and you’re defense for doing so is “It’s what I do” then you just sound like you’re trying to make an excuse for bullying tactics. 

I know there’s people out there that like to say that Sonic is supposed to be “a jerk” but I disagree.Sonic definitely is the kind of guy who takes playful jabs at some of his buddies and outright mocks his enemies, like Eggman, but there’s depictions of him that do this in a way that feels like actual playful ribbing versus him just coming off like an asshole. There’s definitely an equilibrium that a lot of the times this comic tends to not take care in maintaining. 

He brings up Antoine and while it’s true he’s softened on him a bit, earlier in the book he was a lot meaner and came off like a straight up playground bully at times. The writers change hands a lot of the time but even under Ian’s pen Sonic’s personality won’t see any real softening up until maybe the reboot. 

For ME personally, he won’t reach a point that I’m fully on board with until IDW. I love how Sonic’s written there. He always comes off as someone I’d actually like to hang around.

I can’t imagine being comfortable hanging with Archie Sonic. Not even at this point in the book where we’re almost 20 issues into Ian’s run. Part of that is because of all the stuff that led up to this point poisoning his outlook but I felt this way even before I decided to read through all the early stuff. 

It’s true. I don’t like Archie Sonic’s character very much. I’m probably not surprising too many people by saying this but it’s something I feel the need to emphasize so that everyone can truly understand why this story is so important to me.

House of Cards wasn’t the first story that gave off this feeling to me but I feel like the damage it did to my brain and my perception of Archie Sonic has made it so that it’s colored every single action he’s taken before or since. I probably still wouldn’t have liked him that much had this story not happened but I don’t think the struggle to like him would be THIS hard had this story not happened.

I know the era of “Sonic’s Angels” is probably a far worse showing for his character but I naturally just have a stronger attachment to the shit that pissed me off when I was exposed to it first so I’m sorry to say this story might forever be the thing at the top of my shit list.

...That said, Issue #150 WAS really fucking painful...

Sonic and Tails’ argument continues.

Tails says that Sonic would have let his dad rot in prison. That is true.

Sonic’s response is that he tried to oust the king and that you can’t just give Elias the boot. Unnnnghnnngh… It's SO hard reading Sonic the Hedgehog say shit like that. Like, again, I was introduced to this character in a game where he ran from the law, destroyed the military’s best robots, and broke out of prison. Later, I’ll have played a game where he DID boot a king off his throne and slayed him because he was evil. 

It’s just… it’s… 

Well, you know.

Tails literally kicks Sonic in the ass and says that his dad is trying to save the city and that he won’t give him a chance. Sonic says he was only in there for a day and Tails didn’t give him a chance to do anything… which is weird.

That’s a VERY weird thing for Sonic to say seeing as how all he’s done these past two issues was talk about how dumb Amadeus was for protesting, give Elias reassurance that he’s doing an uber great job being the ruler that he doesn’t even want to be, and then try and stop Tails’ dad from getting broken out of jail.

I wonder if Sonic even remembers the time he was thrown in jail by Sally and his friends?

Anyway, these good points that Tails keeps bringing up and Sonic is failing to respond to properly don’t matter because Tails just blurts out the thing he’s actually mad at Sonic for.

Yup, that’s right. Tails is actually mad at Sonic because he stole his pretend girlfriend from him. 

Sssssssssssssssssssoooooo…

… When I read this way back in the day, I think I can recall my entire body deflating. Like it was a balloon that got all the air sucked out of it. 

I couldn’t imagine caring about anything less than I did about Tails’ actual reason for hating on Sonic here. All the other stuff he was talking about before were much more viable and important things to address than this. Words could not express how much I didn’t give a fuck about this stupid, romance, love-triangle bullshit. 

Tails’ obsession with Fiona is dumb. Yes, Tails outlines that the thing he REALLY cared about was Sonic dating her despite his feelings. It’s true. Sonic was a massive dickhead for doing that and not having a conversation with Tails about it instead but fuck man. 

Tails’ parents are staging a revolution and his dad was in danger of rotting in prison and the MAIN thing that actually gets Sonic to stop and consider what Tails is saying is the fact that he stole his not-girlfriend?! SERIOUSLY?!

This was something that needed to be addressed, of course, however, it needed to be done so as yet another bullet point on the checklist that Tails was outlining. Why the flying fuck is this the MAIN point of contention here, especially when the entire rest of this story has nothing to do with Fiona?

I bet if future Tails could look back on this and witness the way he’s acting here he’d probably be really embarrassed.

Well, apparently Fiona was the magic word because all of a sudden Sonic tells Tails that he can go to town on him now. Tails’ line about Sonic taking everything he cares about from him would have more merit if he was just including the Fiona thing as a side-note alongside the much more interesting, important, and pressing issue of his parents but this is what’s going to be the focal point of the resolution now.

Meanwhile, we cut back to the two identical looking brown furred animals in blue and they’re trying to kill each other with their dangerous sharp swords. So at this point there’s no talking things over because they’re literally trying to kill each other now right? You can’t come back from this.

Except, no you can, because then the other thing that infuriated me reading this happened. Sally Suckertash shows up to break up the fighting and completely strip the agency from Elias’ character here.

Fuck off Nicole.

There are three different species of animal in this room and they’re all brown furred animals with big triangular ears. Just wanted to point that out. I’m not making a commentary on this book’s character design for some of these original hero characters. No, not at all.

Sally proceeds to incur more of my wrath by just going up to the both of them and explaining with a single sentence why they shouldn’t be fighting and why they gotta stop and talk now and it’s… blegh.

God, that fucking smug ass face in the bottom panel. It’s pissing me off all over again.

So Elias stops when Sally tells him something he already knows. General Prower stops because, I guess he realized that he was being a bit hypocritical now that he was resorting to trying to KILL the king with his big fuck-off sword.

I still don’t entirely get how Amadeus was planning to achieve his endgame with this plan. Did he think it was going to go over well when everyone outside these walls found out that he just stormed the castle and gutted Elias like a fish?

The fuck was the plan dude? XD

At that point I started laughing a bit because I was just reading this going, “this is even stupider than I remember it being” and it just became a bit too much.

It DOES genuinely upset me that Sally is here at all though. She really should have kept her ass out of this story. I remember being wickedly angry when I read this back in the day and I can’t say I feel too different about it now. She really has no business being here.

This was Elias’ decision to make and we should have followed him coming to this realization on his own. 

What should have happened when General Prower burst into the castle (WITHOUT his sword) was Elias confronting him and saying that he was ready to say his piece. Then we cut away to resolve all the bullshit with Sonic and Tails and when they run into the castle, we see the two of them having their little tea party. 

Then we get a scene of Elias explaining that he came to this decision on his own and decided to hear Amadeus out some more so that they can come up with this new council system together. 

Stripping all the agency away from Elias and just having Sally waltz in to reiterate something he already knows does nothing for him. Elias taking this next step to make a drastic change in how the monarchy is handled will elevate him above King Max regardless but it would have been far more impressive and a much more poignant moment for him if we literally saw him come to the realization that him upholding something he’s admitted to NOT believing in and holding onto a position he doesn’t want for the sake of getting a thumbs up from papa IS the dumb thing to do.

He comes to that decision and decides he wants to let Amadeus out of jail so they can discuss how they can do it together and that way we don’t need this pointless scene of them fighting and of Sally bulldozing her way in to play the centrist.

Then we get the resolution to Sonic and Tails’ conflict where Sonic, for the first time in… ever, has a kind, sincere moment with Tails and genuinely apologizes to him for the way he’s been acting.

What’s truly sad and upsetting to me about this page is the fact that this is actually a really well written scene and I can tell that Sonic is actually being sincere here… but every time I read this part it rolls right off my shoulders.

Like, I can’t fully accept it on the back end of all the shit he just said and did leading up to this point. I don’t know if I want the scene to be longer or for Sonic to maybe have done this on the back end of what he was saying and doing with regards to Tails’ parents instead of him just apologizing over the dumb Fiona thing or what but it just wasn’t enough for me.

Now, having read all the previous issues, the conflict is definitely a bit more than that. Sonic HAS been acting like a tremendous asshole for a while now and in this page he outright talks about how he just hooked up with Fiona because he needed a rebound after Sally broke up with him on top of doing it to keep her away from Tails because he knew he didn’t stand a chance with her.

There’s so many layers to this now and I’m really glad Ian is doing that clean-up thing again where he’s having Sonic apologize for his earlier conduct concerning that gross shit from #150 and onward where he was just cycling through the girls after Evil Sonic made them all interested in him when HE cycled through them.

It’s like all the women were their trophies or something. It’s really gross thinking about it again. 

Regardless of House of Cards, this was something that needed to be addressed and I’m happy it finally was… but this isn’t the right backdrop for it. Plus, it isn’t that perfect of a resolution despite my feelings because when Sonic gives Tails a playful noogie he says to him that next time “You need to say something to me!” and tells him to stop angsting it up like Shadow.

But Sonic, you deliberately didn’t say anything to Tails either! Neither of you talked to one another about your feelings or why you were doing what you were doing. Why is it just on Tails to do that? It continues to make no sense why you just hooked up with Fiona and didn’t even have a proper chat with Tails about his affection for her and why Tails should probably stop trying to get with her. I know why Sonic didn’t do this is because he REALLY wanted a rebound after Sally left him and if he spoke to Tails about Fiona he would have lost his more “charitable” reason for getting together with her but that’s a really sleazy thing to do regardless so who cares? 

Sure, he’s apologizing for it now but it’s being slotted into this story that’s absolutely not about that shit. They really needed to dedicate more time to all the points Tails was bringing up and not just the Fiona thing to make this a more well-rounded issue with Sonic that was being resolved here. Then, at the very least, it wouldn’t feel like the part where Sonic was letting Tails’ parents rot in prison was being dropped and replaced by Tails’ stupid crush on Fiona.

Tails even says he wants to talk more about things when he shakes Sonic’s hand but they have to rush off and go deal with the main plot… only to find it already resolved.

Funnily enough, this tea party shit pissed me off so much back in the day that I wouldn’t shut up about it on those old, dead SEGA Forums. It was basically a punch line I forced into almost every conversation I had about Archie Sonic, no matter the context.

Ironically, today, I find that this tea party resolution isn’t my issue with this scene. No, I’m happy with it’s existence because it means what should have happened finally did. I was just upset because the two of them were fighting and instead of it leading into a story with a bigger conflict and bigger implications towards the uncertain fate of the kingdom, Sally just demolished it and pissed me off.

Nowadays, however, I find myself not caring about that specifically. I’m STILL really pissed off that Sally injected herself into this scene but for a completely different reason now. I no longer wish the fight had continued but rather that it didn’t happen in the first place. My problem with this scene is no longer that it happened but that it DIDN’T HAPPEN SOONER.

I didn’t want King Max’s shit awful monarchy to remain. I didn’t want them to meet in the middle. I wanted Elias to accept the fact that he agreed with Amadeus and to work out the solution with him like the king his father never would have been. It would have made me so proud of my boy.

I still AM proud of my boy but with an asterisk next to it because, unfortunately, his sister was deemed necessary to come in and help make the decision for him. I’ll never be okay with that. I’m sorry.

Still, at the very least I got to witness this aftermath scene.

Elias has turned their legacy into a democracy that allows the people to have more of a say and they’re legitimately happy.

King Max can’t stand the fact that his people are happy and that they dare share in the authority so he rolls his insufferable ass away, no doubt looking for a good place to suffer and die from a heart attack.

His mom is more supportive and reminds him of the fact that he’s the king and he’s the one who makes the decisions. What his father thinks does not matter. It just doesn’t.

I’m glad she’s being more understanding and the hug at the end is adorable but it really does sting that Elias needed all this to be told to him. I don’t mind him being given advice but some agency on his part would have been nice.

We end the issue on Sonic, Tails, and Sally observing what’s happening. Amadeus didn’t run for office because he’s the sword of the people, not the voice. That’s why Tails’ mom is running instead. Sonic and Sally have some banter about why they both refused the crown. 

Then the floating disembodied head of Knuckles’ barely alive ancestor and former evil tyrant, Dimitri shows up to casually reveal that Enerjak has returned.

It really is a miraculous wonder that Ian Flynn is about to go from one of his worst stories to one of his absolute best with a flick of the wrist.

I can’t wait because, honestly, I’m ready to no longer have to talk about Locke.

This was the most intimidating review I’ve probably had to do yet. I’m a bit more afraid of the descending opinions on this one, if only because I worry I may take them more personally than usual. A lot of what I feel is wrong with this story does in fact deal with my own personal feelings regarding Sonic’s character and how my perception of his Archie counterpart has been bastardized beyond repair in part because of this and my own political viewpoints. Before it was just a story I hated because of all the squandered potential but now that I’m older and I know a lot more about what this thing was trying to say, I feel like this more definitive breakdown of why it’s STILL a really bad story was even more necessary.

Hopefully, I didn’t make anyone mad with this. I'm a bit too sensitive, I know. I can only imagine what I’d be saying here if Ian’s original plan hadn’t been thrown out by the editor in charge at the time.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Hoo-boy, this one's gonna be interesting...

• Before we begin, I feel the need to point out I just don't like this arc whatsoever. I feel like Ian could've done something really strong, calling out how fucking shit the Acorn Royalty has been, and how it's time to get them out of power, or at least - get Max as far away as possible. I like the idea of the group realising how bad the hierarchy is, and how they want to choose their leaders, but I feel like Ian never actually delivered on that. The arc tries to set up the idea that by collaborating, they reach a peaceful agreement that leads both parties to a better society, but like - no. If anything, the Council of Acorn is later shown to be a gigantic roadblock in front of most Freedom Fighter activities, directly allowing Naugus to get himself into power further down the line, and Hamlin even managing to abuse his power several times for the sake of pettily blocking Sally's very real attempts to stop Eggman's war, making them feel about as ineffective and even as counter-productive as Max did. We got told this would change a lot, but in the end, it's kind of like we just got the same bad decision making with a different group of people.
• I do have to disagree with Rosemary that this was the right time to pull this, IMO. This was right after Eggman had razed the city to the ground, everyone had nearly faced death itself, and they were now dislocated and adjusting to all the changes. If anything, doing it now when tensions are extremely high and everyone's looking for someone to blame for Eggman's attack if anything villainises Elias a bit more for something he could never have predicted, and wasn't his fault (Given Eggman was planning that trump card for ages and had caught *everyone* off guard with that). You could probably blame Max in a roundabout way for starting the war with Eggman, but still, that wasn't a fault of Elias'.
• That said, Fuck Sonic. Fuck him. He is a gigantic prick here, and I hate how he defends the Acorn's shit actions. The only slack I'll give him was trying to cheer Elias up, and that's only because I don't really blame Elias for anything, but rather Max having done most, if not all awful decisions in this kingdom.
• I genuinely can't tell if the whole 'riot' thing is a writer issue or an art issue, but it's a pretty awful mislabelling either way. 
• Sonic continues to be so painfully out of character that I feel like we should rename him for this arc at this rate, much like Crazy Steve from All-Star Batman and Robin.
• I feel like I need to point out that they went so painfully overboard about making Sonic such a dickhead, and what I hate about this is I feel like they could make minor changes and make Sonic look more in character while still getting the point across. Instead of having Sonic showing up, acting like a smug douchebag over Tails 'worshipping' him, why not have Sonic be angry that the Prowers basically dragged Tails into the whole thing in the first place, and have now basically made him a criminal against the kingdom? Hell, he could be angry with the fact that Tails was so desperate to find his parents again, and here they are throwing it away by pulling a prison break. It'd still show Sonic being a bit wrong by defending the Acorn Kingdom, but at least his basis for calling the Prowers out would be based on how their actions will effect Tails, instead of him going on about how Tails would just 'get over it'.
• Despite my earlier problems (which is more a issue with what we see becomes of the Council of Acorn) - I am at least happy with the outcome that Elias was willing to listen out - and concede to what the people wanted, and it shows why he's a much better leader than Max - Elias never wanted to be a ruler, he ran off to just do some common work and live a regular life. He isn't hopped up on power and heritage, and thus he's more willing to listen to his people and make concessions for them. The conflict only really comes from Max essentially taking advantage of Elias' desperate want of connection and recognition from him, and in the end, Elias realises (Sally's help or not) that he needs to lead the way he wants to, and not allow Max to stop him from making the decisions he feels is right, and that makes his people happy. I'm glad that there was a shift from just Max's insane rule to a democracy, I just wish Ian actually wrote it better in later arcs so it didn't just feel like the Council of Acorn was yet another roadblock for the heroes.
• I still really hate how the conflict of Sonic VS Tails revolved around Fiona. It still feels a bit weird to me how Tails acted like he was entitled to have Fiona, or something. I still believe Sonic dating her was a dickhead move, but at the same time, it still continues to be weird how Tails never stops to consider how Fiona factored into it, that maybe she just wanted to be with Sonic? Hell, given how Sonic got gaslighted and manipulated by Fiona in the end, you'd think Tails would at least acknowledge Fiona managed to hurt them both or something, instead of heaping all of the blame onto Sonic. I'm not saying Sonic's right, here, but I don't think Tails really is either, and it's still kind of a Lost World situation where Sonic has to acknowledge the wrong thing he did, but not Tails.

Overall, my thoughts are still the same. I hate House of Cards with a passion. Characters are written OOC in order to drive the conflict further, making it feel overdone and forced. It's a bad arc with even worse implications in the modern day, and an arc that even looking back on it all in hindsight - didn't even DO much to progress things. As I said, the Council of Acorn just because as much of a roadblock for the Freedom Fighters as Max was, instilling known villains into power and actively road-blocking the heroes for petty reasons. Sonic and Tails end up having their characters harmed for a bad reason with the whole Fiona love-triangle, and it's just all a nothing story. It kind of had to happen to clean up the love nonsense Penders was setting up, but it was not remotely the best backdrop to do so.

 

[SBR2]

Ok my keyboard crapped out on me on my main computer so I'm using my phone so I won't comment in my typical style and honestly I don't think it would workfor this anyway. I'm here to defend...part of House of Cards. Not the whole thing just the Sonic and Tails stuff.

Funnily enough I used to try and defend the whole thing but as I started paying more attention to the world...Yeah no the politics in this arc have aged extremely poorly.

But in regards to Sonic's character here I do feel that him saying assholeish stuff like "The kid worships me" makes sense for this particular version of the character. This isn't the games version. This is the Mike Gallagher and Ken Penders and honestly evena little bit Karl Bollers version of the character. He's a soldier so he's loyal to a damn fault to the crown he and the Freedom Fighters were trying to get the (allegedly) good king Max back in the seat of power because...I don't know he gave everyone kittens or something? 

But even outside of making him a bootlicker it's important to remember that this version is and kinda always has been a huge bag of dicks. He gets into fights at a drop of a hat, has such a massive ego he thinks of the war as only his fight and according to Ken Penders he's no better than his evil counterpart. Archie Sonic is an ass. So this story goes out of its way to acknowledge that. It makes a point out of portraying Sonic as thoughtless and inadvertently hurting people close to him. It's commenting on and developing past the shitty way Sonic had been written in the comics up to this point. 

I also really don't get where this idea Tails is only fighting Sonic because of Fiona. Yes she was the tipping point but none of the stuff Tails mentions prior is undone because he brings up Fiona. All his points are still valid nut because he cries about the girl he had a crush on suddenly nothing he said beforethat point matters.

I also want to point out yes it's irrational he'd go to this extreme but Tails is like...fuck who knows? Penders had him say he was 11 but Penders also seemed to ignore the time skip so he's anywhere between 11 and 13 here. The point is kids overreact. Admittedly  it to this extreme but kids are not rational even cartoonish boy geniuses. I've said a lot that I don't take the Game characters ages seriously because in the end they're arbitrary (the Babylon Rogues are 2 adults who take orders from a middle schooler and you want me to take that at face value?) but in the comics they never stop reminding you. This is one of the only places that Tails has ever felt like an actual child. He's mad at the person he looked up to treating him like trash.

I just feel like that's the whole point of the fight. To acknowledge that Sonic has been shitty in these comics and to work at making him closer to the games version. Whether they succeed or not is up for debate but still as far as the Sonic and Tails stuff goes I'll defend that part of House of Cards. 

[Cuz]

I don't see where we're getting "loyal to a fault to the crown" from Archie Sonic, judging from the character's history, and again I actually like Sonic as a knight of Acorn at least in theory. I mean he's shown to be rebellious, and has bucked the King's (Max) authority on occasion over the years, particularly in the lead up to 75 when Robotnik came back from being dead, or nicking the Sword of Acorns from the Treasury on a hunch. Sonic usually has no issue challenging the crown when he feels he's justified, and that's one of the myriad of reason this arc doesn't work for me. House of Cards makes him out to be a strawman.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I also have to disagree with this being a hot take on how Sonic acts in the comic. Taking Ken Penders’ version of the character should give an immediate reaction as to not pin Sonic being an ass on Archie canon and just Penders being a douchebag. I’m nearly sure I discussed this before, but Bollers portrayed him as a hero who’d risk his life to save his friends and even the planet.

Sonic claiming he had to fight the war wasn’t some egotistical dick move on his part, it was a legitimate point that he’s one of the people most capable of defeating Eggman, and the context of which was Sally basically telling Sonic to sit back and send the rest of his friends into danger to do dirty work for him while he hid away in Castle Acorn, playing royalty for Sally’s sake. Despite the understandable reasoning for why Sally had the reaction she did, Sonic very clearly was in the right with the points he was making about why he couldn’t in good conscience do that. Sally calling him “selfish” is shown as unreasonable when Sonic out and out points out he was willing to die to save everyone and as a result, lost over a year of his life back on Mobius, a year Eggman had exploited without Sonic to drag the war to a worst place than ever before.

Penders’ Sonic is just a total sleezebag in general and is dangerous out of character, but that wasn’t how Sonic was portrayed for most of the comic. Gallagher’s Sonic is a pun spewing asshat as well, but again - that’s a result of the original comic direction. There never was one solid coherent direction for Sonic as a character until Ian came on board because three different writers were attempting to write their own version of Sonic and each one wrote him differently.

At best, Ian does try to acknowledge some of the previous writers’ more dick moves (alright, he acknowledges Penders’ garbo version more than anything), but even this version of Sonic is ridiculously out of character for the Sonic who just ten issues before this point had saw Tails being nervous and afraid to walk up to his parents, and he playfully helped him do so. The Sonic who looked over the graves of his two friends and talked maturely about how much they’d lost in such a short time, even though they were getting victories. The Sonic who refused to let Eggman obliterate Tommy, even with Tommy telling everyone it was for the best. 

It’s why I also can’t allow #178 to make me hate Archie Sonic as a character. He’s so out of character for this one issue that I can’t find myself to hold it against Ian or Sonic as a character. He gets better in #179 when he’s trying to calm Tails down, and find out what’s bugging him, and has his nice moment. It’s clear something in #178 happened, let it be Ian feeling the need to overcompensate for Sonic’s attitude, or editorial telling him to get the fight going, or hell - maybe it was just rushed. 

But even at that, I can’t even say this is worse than garbage like #150 or Sonic in any issues before or after the fact. Here, the worst it gets is Sonic being OOC, acting like a dickhead, and being overly egotistical, that’s a far cry from the sleezey douchebag who continued to use Evil Sonic’s deception, and kept running around the girls for the sake of it. Penders is and still is far and away the worst with how he bastardised the characters, and I don’t take them remotely seriously. They’re so bad that I’d frankly go further to separate the two as “Penders Sonic” and “Archie Sonic” because it’s painfully clear they aren’t supposed to be one and the same.

Finally, it’s worth noting Ian was legitimately just in a unfair position, he wanted a longer arc and didn’t get it. He was told to do a Sonic VS Tails story because Civil War was a thing, and boosted sales for Marvel. Ian was told to make Sonic and Tails fight and Ian felt he had no choice but to make Sonic a douche to do it, also while trying to acknowledge and clean up more past problems that other writers had left behind. It’s not exactly as if Ian was given the best positioning to work with here, and it shows compared to his work before the arc, and after it, where this remains the only major time Sonic is so hugely OOC.

[Dr. Detective]

4 hours ago, SBR2 said:

I also really don't get where this idea Tails is only fighting Sonic because of Fiona.

No one said that. The issue is that it was treated as the main focal point behind Tails's rage. Suddenly the scene where Sonic apologizes is made to be just about that when all the other stuff Sonic said and did that Tails brought up was just ignored. It was definitely something that needed to be addressed but it being given the most time and dedication in this particular story where his parents are trying to start a rebellion creates a heavy dissonence with me. It just feels really lame and silly. 

Not helping is that the plot point of Tails having this crush on Fiona and Sonic dating her at all was always a bad plot. I know that's not Ian's fault (most of this isn't) but that's the circumstances I'm left with to analyze. 

[SkyHorizon]

Hi everyone, new user here, nice to meet you all. Just before discussing the infamous "House of Cards", I'd like to share a few thoughts.

I've followed Detective Mike's reviews since a looooong time, but I've always resisted the urge to create an account and express my congratulations for your amazing work. I mean, really, I've read (multiple times) every single Archie (and later IDW) Sonic comic, so revisiting them with you really bring back memories. More than that, I love your style, seriously, you're underappreciated in my opinion, you rock, man!

So, what did change? Why did I decide to change my position and finally post on this board? 

Well, at the cost of making you all hate me on my first post... I'm here to defend "House of Cards"!

Now, before you kill me on spot, I'm not saying the story is perfect. Is far from perfect, actually, more or less for the reasons you all have already listed. That said, I want to put in a good word for this poor story...

• Sonic. I don't find Sonic that much OOC. I mean, yeah, he's a bit more dickish than usual, but people can have a day where they are a little bit "off". And his sentence about Tails "worshipping" him? Yeah, poor choice of words, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. I always took that sentence as something said without thinking too much about it, something that just slips. His comment on Amadeus at the beginning? I'm sorry, but he is right. I mean, I really doubt Elias would have not listened to him if he had approached quietly instead of inciting "a riot" (but more about this later...).
• Sonic's loyalties... well, I never saw it as much of a deal. Remember that's the reality the FF have always known and they've worked hard to save the king, I think it's natural to see the only reality you know as the "correct" one. Anyway, Sonic has shown times and again that if he thinks ol' Max (or the authority) was doing something stupid, he would not listen.
• The Fiona and Tails part! Well, let's be honest here: Ian was handed a very poor hand. He had to struggle to make the best of an awful situation. And, personally, I think he found a pretty sound reason to explain why Sonic did something as bad as dating Fiona. It's not perfect, but -hey- it's coherent. After all the BS from pre-160, I'm fine with that.
• Finally, the political part! I'm sure (we all know) Ian's objective wasn't to promote the monarchy! The idea of having Amadeus and Rosemary as the catalyst for the revolution was great, the execution... meh, somehow poor. I never saw the using of the word "riot" as something necessarily exaggerate. I mean, we've not really seen what Amadeus and the people really did to the city. If you put the situation in contest, imagine a hundreds-years long monarchy confronted with something like that... Putting Amadeus in prison was absolutely due, not because he deserved it, but because that's how that kind of monarchies work. Then said, it's not perfect, the resolution is a little rushed and the whole situation a bit... circumstantially lucky, if you know what I mean.

So, in the end, did I like this story? Meh, I'd say it's one of my least favorites from Ian's run, but, seriously, I'd take "House of Cards" over 90% of the pre-160 era (except Return to Angel Island, of course).

P.S: I'm not a native English speaker, so be kind with my grammar, ok? 

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Hi everyone, new user here, nice to meet you all. Just before discussing the infamous "House of Cards", I'd like to share a few thoughts.

I've followed Detective Mike's reviews since a looooong time, but I've always resisted the urge to create an account and express my congratulations for your amazing work. I mean, really, I've read (multiple times) every single Archie (and later IDW) Sonic comic, so revisiting them with you really bring back memories. More than that, I love your style, seriously, you're underappreciated in my opinion, you rock, man!

Thank you very much. Words can't really do justice to how much I appreciate it. It's always nice to know that people are actually engaging with this retrospective and that I'm not speaking into the ether. Plus, it's always good to have replies because if I don't, I won't be able to continue and all that.

I think a lot of your talk on House of Cards might stand as a good example of how a person's perception of a story can easily differ from person to person. Whether or not the circumstances based on how they were exposed to it, how they see these characters, or how much the acknowledgement of the different writers effects you negatively or positively is entirely dependent on the individual.

That's why even after reading Issue #150, House of Cards is still my most hated story in Archie Sonic. It's easily the one that's had the most influence on me, bar none. Issue #150 was an horrendous and gross story that I read once years ago and had no recollection of and read again much more recently during this and discovered a passionate hatred for. However, were I to make a list of my most hated stories, I wouldn't be able to put it above House of Cards on a personal level. I'd be lying to you all if I did.

Unlike Ryan, I can't separate the story from how I perceive Archie Sonic. The circumstances behind how many different writers Sonic has had and who does what when they handle writing him is something that I as a reader can't keep track of and, to be fair to the reader, is something that they shouldn't be expected to keep track of. Even making the distinction between writers doesn't entirely help because there's something about every version of Archie Sonic, including Ian's, that rubs me the wrong way.

Then there's the fact that the focal point of the story in House of Cards deals with subject matter I care more about. I can't say as to whether or not one or the other is more important. I don't think that's a fair thing to try and judge. Different difficult subject matter will mean different things to different people after all. To me, I care way more about the handling of Sonic and Tails' relationship then I ever will about his relationship with Sally, or Bunnie, or Mina. It's just not something that'll ever occupy the same space of concern as Sonic and Tails do. Their dynamic is my second favorite thing about the Sonic series right below everything surrounding the Chaotix Detective Agency. Then there's the stuff about protesting and "riots" and how that has a real connection to something in real life that scares me on a more personal level too.

There ARE situations where a character being so alien to me would make it so that I'd put the story a bit lower on the list of things I hated. The "Charmy Bee Gets LSD and Almost Dies and then Gets Written out of the Series" story is insanely upsetting to me but what I recognize to be "Charmy Bee" is so divorced from that story that it's probably a lot easier to compartmentalize in my head.

At the end of the day, your opinion is going to be your own and I'm merely doing this to share mine and get some incite on all of yours too.

Because it's fun. 

[QuantumEdge]

Jesus, for what's only two issues, I forget how much of a drain this story was...  I mean, watching characters be so unnecessarily stupid/prickish is just such a drain for me to read.  I always find it a drag reading bad stories of this type, so it makes the leap in quality with the next arc feel so nuts.

I never thought about it, but you're right, Sally does kinda suck away Elias' thunder here.  This scene would've been so much better if they skipped the fight scene schtick and have them talk it out.  Makes for a more unusual, but more satisfying conclusion.   

But my god though, if there was ever any core problem this comic had it was Sonic himself.  Everything about him has just flown in the face of what he's supposed to be: free, borderline anarchic, skips to his own beat etc.  Here it's just plain sad seeing him simping for a jackass kingdom and playing toy soldier.  As a result this is the only place you'll ever see Sonic actually fight Tails to defend an authoritarian state.  The mind boggles.  And what's worse is he still kinda does this, even after growing into a better character after this.  It's why the reboot (to some extent) and IDW's versions of Sonic are such welcome changes in that it's a Sonic who's way more in character.

Also, can we take a moment to say Nicole really didn't help much here?  If anything she basically escalated tensions with her actions...

[Kuzu]

You know, it's kind of interesting when you think about it; the idea of Sonic being a soldier for a monarchy was a holdover from SATAM, where the series hadn't really established Sonic's rebellious spirit yet, So by the time this story arc came out, Sonic was pretty much firmly established a free-spirited dude for almost a decade as far as the games and general media was concerned. 

But because Archie was still following the mold set by SATAM, it decided to keep Sonic as a "soldier" despite how much that conflicted with what his then current person entailed. 

If Sonic was characterized as he was in games within this story arc, he would have just abandoned the whole monarchy and went about his business. But that means disrupting a fourteen year status quo for longtime readers.

 

It's kind of funny how you can relate a bit of reality subtext in there; It wouldn't surprise me if some Archie fans thought Tails and his family were in the wrong. They're the ones who started "the riots", and they're trying to tear down the Kingdom that has served as the status quo for years .

[E-122-Psi]

I've always been sort of hit and miss about this issue among many others.

One thing I have to say is that I think it IS a good idea to have a character's flaws reach boiling point and for them to have consequences the odd time. I think it ultimately worked better to have bad blood from past writers like this called into question rather than shoved under the rug permanently (I feel like characters such as Sally and Locke and many other Archie regulars would have benefited greatly from this treatment sometimes as well, though Locke sorta reached this in his final arc).

However I've never really been big on how melodramatic and visceral Archie tends to get with these moments, with big disownments and violent beatdowns and whatnot, giving it a bit of a soap opera feel. Cases like Silver being read the riot act over his finger pointing are also where I believe the character benefited from having consequences and being shown in a more ugly light ultimately led to him being more sympathetic in the long run, compared to say his Next Gen version who got easily forgiven after a 'not-really-an-apology for trying to kill you in cold blood', but it's kinda putting seeing the likes of Sonic and Tails so damn feral and wanting to literally wring an ally's neck on sight in these stories. I get Archie is meant to be MUCH darker and raw than normal Sonic fare, but I dunno, I guess it's where preference in tone plays for me.

I also feel like Sonic's remorse wasn't quite legit and gratifying enough that to make up for how unlikeable they make him building up to this. I know I said it works to see their flaws at their worst but still at a level you feel it works after they said sorry for it. Things cleared up too easily after all that.

I suppose Lost Worlds and some of the Boom stories are closer to what I feel works characteristically as stories where Sonic's arrogance finally bites him hard (though the former still kinda botches up the Tails feud :P).

[Kuzu]

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here; I didn't really jive with this story either when I first read it, because it just felt completely alien from what I preferred from Sonic and what I knew. I understood archie was its own beast, but I just could not reconcile the image of Sonic I had with what it was doing. I was severe cognitive dissonance reading early Archie issues. 

 

But looking at it now, I get what they were going for; showing the faults of the series` status quo and trying to address it. But I felt the whole thing was just kind of rushed and brushed aside. It felt obligatory is what I'm saying. And it makes sense; this an arc with years of background issues being brought to the forefront and its resolved in two issues, with just a small spat and a tea time talk. It's somehow both overly melodramatic yet not developed enough.

 

I dunno man. Sonic media is so fucking weird about this; it will have good premises and ideas, but never develop them enough for it to mean something. And when the series does delve into those ideas, the executions ends up turning it into something that doesn't really mesh with the overall series. On paper, the idea of Sonic & Tails having a fallout is a good idea...but it's over a girl of all things, additionally Sonic & Tails have been bros for so long, the idea that they COULD have a falling out is already a tough sell to begin with. Lost World had this problem too. 

It's a novel idea that writers have never been able to make work, but then that discourages writers from ever trying and they just come off as stale as a result. Its so frustrating. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Personally speaking, if I had to handle Sonic and Tails falling out in this particular instance, I'd base it around Sonic's reaction to Tails' parents more than anything else. As I said before, Sonic's basically Tails' surrogate big brother and looked out for the kid for years. He knows how heartbroken that Tails was over his missing parents, he was the one pushing Tails to go forward towards them when he finally got them back. 

I think the story might've been way better if Sonic was actually just a neutral party to the whole thing - or hell - he was on the Prowers' side, but he didn't want Tails getting involved with the conflict because he didn't want to see Tails getting treated like one of the rogues' gallery. He could voice displeasure at the timing of the situation (albeit - with better phrasing like "I get wanting change and all, but right after Eggman razing our houses to the ground isn't exactly the best time, now everyone's gonna be calling for Elias' head"), but it would look infinitely better on Sonic if he was looking out for Tails' well-being above all else.

I don't know, I feel like Sonic would have a legitimate leg to stand on if Nicole had alerted him that Rosemary had concocted an escape plan, and involved Tails in it. Rosemary straight up used her son's intellect to pull off a prison break, and basically made Tails a criminal against the kingdom, no matter how unjustified Armedus' arrest was. I could then see Sonic rushing off to the detention centre and calling the two out for involving Tails and risk getting him locked up as well, being over-protective of him. Tails would get into the fight because he thinks Sonic only wants to keep Tails as a sidekick, and is trying to tear him away from his family again, while Sonic just wants Tails not to get himself into trouble. Rosemary pretty much convinces Tails to use his intellect to commit a crime and then both of them leave Tails to fight Sonic while they go to Castle Acorn, and Tails being a capable fighter or not, that has always never sat particularly well with me either.

If they cut away the stuff in the ending of the first issue about Sonic "giving him a pounding" and insulting him, and just went right to the stuff with Sonic dodging Tails and trying to calm him down, while Tails is letting loose about his anger and frustrations with Sonic over the years, IMO it would've ended up a lot better and made Sonic look a lot better as a result than the bootlicker we got presented with in House of Cards. 

[E-122-Psi]

27 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here; I didn't really jive with this story either when I first read it, because it just felt completely alien from what I preferred from Sonic and what I knew. I understood archie was its own beast, but I just could not reconcile the image of Sonic I had with what it was doing. I was severe cognitive dissonance reading early Archie issues. 

 

But looking at it now, I get what they were going for; showing the faults of the series` status quo and trying to address it. But I felt the whole thing was just kind of rushed and brushed aside. It felt obligatory is what I'm saying. And it makes sense; this an arc with years of background issues being brought to the forefront and its resolved in two issues, with just a small spat and a tea time talk. It's somehow both overly melodramatic yet not developed enough.

 

I dunno man. Sonic media is so fucking weird about this; it will have good premises and ideas, but never develop them enough for it to mean something. And when the series does delve into those ideas, the executions ends up turning it into something that doesn't really mesh with the overall series. On paper, the idea of Sonic & Tails having a fallout is a good idea...but it's over a girl of all things, additionally Sonic & Tails have been bros for so long, the idea that they COULD have a falling out is already a tough sell to begin with. Lost World had this problem too. 

It's a novel idea that writers have never been able to make work, but then that discourages writers from ever trying and they just come off as stale as a result. Its so frustrating. 

Pretty much. I can appreciate what they were aiming for and that they TRIED to humanise and give catharsis to this problem, I think it makes a ton of difference over 'safe' protagonist centered morality approaches like say, the Sonic X take on Sonic, whose flat as cardboard for it. I feel a large factor that plays into a flawed character working is whether the writer acknowledges their fundamental flaws and is willing to showcase them and give them consequences. I feel there was just many comic characters where the writers kinda dithered touching that side of them, just thinking it worked to give them a bit of 'edge' but otherwise on the right side (at least from their POV when writing them). Not just Archie either, STC RAN on this.

I feel the problem however is always execution with Archie, it's always countering melodrama with MORE melodrama. Sometimes you just get sick of characters screaming or threatening each other. This isn't Eastenders. The fact this was over Sonic cock blocking Tails pretty much made this doomed on arrival. They're not great at resolving spats believably after so much venom either, like you said it was resolved just too quickly, Tails goes from rabid dog to docile in five seconds and I didn't feel a sincere level of humility on Sonic's part.

I feel there's also just something inherently smarmy and unlikeable about Archie Sonic, his ethics and attitude always contradict badly in that take because well, it's a total clusterfuck of takes. You have to be careful making an arrogant character likeable and I think in such a grim and convoluted scenario, Sonic is always a stone throw away from looking like a total hypocrite or cruelly apathetic, sometimes even when they're not aiming for an uglier shot of him. I appreciate they were willing to point out sometimes that the character WAS arrogant and had to be thrown off his high horse, compared to some of the other Freedom Fighters who are just treated as 'rightly self righteous' at worst (who knows how much more insufferable Sonic would have been if not), but they still weren't great at bringing him back to earth, especially since he's often back to square one a short while after.

It's weird that most of the more successful takes that have went for a Sonic and Tails argument scenario are usually the ones that don't make as much of a big deal about it, like the OVA or Boom where they have light bickering or fall outs that imply this sort of stuff happens all the time, which is actually kind of a humorous way to humanise their relationship.

[Kuzu]

Yea, but then that just makes the whole scenario of them fighting pointless imo, at least as a story device. In Boom, it's a gag series and not meant to be taken seriously, and in the OVA, it's just a minor spat that has no real bearing on the story. 

I suppose the best scenario is to just never call attention to it and play it off as a small spat and nothing more. 

 

It's the same thing with Sonic's entire personality lol. There's no real point in being a smug prick if he doesn't ever pay for it, but he's still the protagonist of the story and we have to at least be willing to root for him. Being called out for his shit is fine, but since he's the protagonist, if his actions and personality veer too far into unlikable territory, then we're no longer on his side and it's a problem when your main protagonist is an unlikable dick. Obviously some people like and prefer a more unlikable Sonic, but it's obviously something of a lingering issue. Either Sonic is too boring, or he's too unlikable. 

[E-122-Psi]

53 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Yea, but then that just makes the whole scenario of them fighting pointless imo, at least as a story device. In Boom, it's a gag series and not meant to be taken seriously, and in the OVA, it's just a minor spat that has no real bearing on the story. 

I suppose the best scenario is to just never call attention to it and play it off as a small spat and nothing more. 

 

It's the same thing with Sonic's entire personality lol. There's no real point in being a smug prick if he doesn't ever pay for it, but he's still the protagonist of the story and we have to at least be willing to root for him. Being called out for his shit is fine, but since he's the protagonist, if his actions and personality veer too far into unlikable territory, then we're no longer on his side and it's a problem when your main protagonist is an unlikable dick. Obviously some people like and prefer a more unlikable Sonic, but it's obviously something of a lingering issue. Either Sonic is too boring, or he's too unlikable. 

I guess I still think those comedic takes sort work because it shows how they have effect on dynamics, and they still have a bit of 'break the haughty' air to them. It's light but it's still keeping Sonic in check.

I think the issue with Sonic in Archie is that there are WAY BIGGER long term consequences for Sonic acting like his usual reckless arrogant self, as in people can DIE for it. Compared to the more cartoony takes, where it's sort of buffered by the audaciousness and episodic nature, Sonic acting like a jerk, being sorry for it, and then having to learn the same mistake over and over again has WAY more repercussions that don't get reset, and that can take a heavier toll on his personality, especially in many cases he gets butthurt at people criticising him because he USUALLY gets it right. It's like many say Homer's 'jerkass' run in The Simpsons truly started when his ignorance killed a recurring character with no reset and he acted as apathetically about it as his usual status quo hijinks.

I think the underlying fact people got LEGIONIZED (supposedly the next worst thing after robotocisation) because of their overconfidence is something that prevented me siding with Sonic and Sally over Mina in the Naugus arc for example, especially since they expected to go back to partying right afterwards like any other world saving rather than, you know, apologising to the victims and making more apparent it wouldn't happen again (and let's face it, if not for the reboot, Sonic and even Sally WOULD almost certainly get complacent again). This might have worked if that was the actual point, but it genuinely seemed like the writers thought one 'what have we done?' and saving the day should be the end of that flawed moment.

Sonic in nearly all forms is always someone who kicks his heels, gives a halfassed apology and then goes right back to his old ways. He's our 'loveable rogue' if you will, deserving of the occasional parable to bring him back down to earth but otherwise harmless. It's something easily maintainable in a light hearted scenario, but in a more high stakes one, Sonic being extremely flawed is sometimes a stone throw from making him look like a sociopath. As said I appreciate calling out that uglier side of the character, but you have to do it proportionately enough that you can go back to him being a likeable character afterwards.

I feel it can also depend on what level of morality the writers INTENDS the character is supposed to be viewed as. If the character is MEANT to be a dick then fair enough, just hope they suffer enough to still make their jerkishness entertaining, but if you have a character that's meant to be likeable well then you fail in your goal. 

I feel like characters like Sonic, Sally and sometimes even Knuckles have always suffered in this regards in Archie, they want a more 'raw' take on them but sometimes just inadvertently end up with flat out unlikeable personalities due to the more delicate premise and sometimes pretentious writing that wants to go back to quick fixes after aiming too high.

[Kuzu]

Well I'm not really fond the takes that literally don't even attempt to do anything either. 

*Sigh* This series pisses me off sometimes. 

[E-122-Psi]

7 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Well I'm not really fond the takes that literally don't even attempt to do anything either. 

*Sigh* This series pisses me off sometimes. 

Yeah maybe this is why I just prefer light hearted takes like Boom, that DO try some character deconstructions but are simple enough to keep it on an easily maintainable leash.

Archie is always gonna be a bastion of obstacles simple by virtue of its premise, sometimes even when it doesn't want to do something ambitious. Hell even just trying to mix the series' whimsy and drama together can mesh badly (eg. see how they tried to modernise Charmy's personality, which even Flynn admitted turned out horrible in hindsight).

[SkyHorizon]

7 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Archie is always gonna be a bastion of obstacles simple by virtue of its premise, sometimes even when it doesn't want to do something ambitious. Hell even just trying to mix the series' whimsy and drama together can mesh badly (eg. see how they tried to modernise Charmy's personality, which even Flynn admitted turned out horrible in hindsight).

Well, Charmy's brain damage is kind of a unicum, even Flynn admitted that he didn't really realize the implications of that choice. Then again, even a situation like that one could've been turned into something good, like showing how a "brain-damaged" person could be well-integrated in the society without being discriminated (note that I'm not justifying the choice, just saying that some choices shouldn't be taken for bad a priori).

 

...except for most of Penders' choices, those were bad!

[VO.SUPER]

What was the original plan for House of Cards? I hear about that and I'm just having a bit of trouble finding it.

It does feel like a bit too big of an idea to shove into 2 issues.

[Cuz]

It was supposed to be drawn out over the year or so. A big Marvel's Civil War inspired conflict with proper time to boil, but editorial said no one has got time for that. Honestly Iron Dominion does a better job at being what House of Cards was conceived  as. 

 

Here is a bumblekast Q&A that touches on it. Jump to about the 48:15 (for the question), or 49:00 (Ian getting straight to it) mark:

 

[E-122-Psi]

32 minutes ago, Cuz said:

It was supposed to be drawn out over the year or so. A big Marvel's Civil War inspired conflict with proper time to boil, but editorial said no one has got time for that. Honestly Iron Dominion does a better job at being what House of Cards was conceived  as. 

My main issue with Iron Dominion is how similarly the whole feud is instigated by a really dumb action by the heroes. While House of Cards was trying to culminate 'Sonic stole Tails' ho', the whole Iron Dominion takeover relied on the Freedom Fighters being too stupidly overconfident to think a techno mage might be a threat to their AI protected city. Much like House of Cards, no matter what it built up to, there's still a bitter aftertaste from the dumb way it was instigated and the repercussions it had.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:56 AM, E-122-Psi said:

My main issue with Iron Dominion is how similarly the whole feud is instigated by a really dumb action by the heroes. While House of Cards was trying to culminate 'Sonic stole Tails' ho', the whole Iron Dominion takeover relied on the Freedom Fighters being too stupidly overconfident to think a techno mage might be a threat to their AI protected city. Much like House of Cards, no matter what it built up to, there's still a bitter aftertaste from the dumb way it was instigated and the repercussions it had.

In all fairness, if an AI could hold a powerful-mage like Mammoth Mogul, why wouldn’t they be (over-)confident in whether it could stand against the Iron Dominion?

A reminder that even the techomage herself was as clueless to the idea as the heroes were until Snively pointed it out, it’s not like the Iron Queen was aware of how deeply ingrained into the city Nicole was to exploit it at that moment. And looking back, that was kind of the point, to gauge and build their new enemy against the heroes, especially since the Iron Queen took more than 70 issues to even make a comeback and had her abilities completely revamped to become a technomage instead of just a general sorceress like others prior to her return.

Like, I’m fully aware of the Iron Dominion arc’s flaws, especially with its pacing and the SallyXKhan thing that could have been done without, and I’m not gonna say it’s perfect (even though it’s one of my personal favorites of the early-Flynn era). But your issue is literally with the entire point of the story and the effects it was actually supposed to bring into the next upcoming arcs.

You might as well say Eggman was stupid for recruiting her again into his forces knowing full well she’s capable of turning his own tech against him the same way.

[SanPolo4389]

13 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Like, I’m fully aware of the Iron Dominion arc’s flaws, especially with its pacing and the SallyXKhan thing that could have been done without,

Yeah I’m wondering why did it have that shipping to begin with, I’m guessing to have development with Khan?