Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Blazey Firekitty]

Knuckles' gliding is equally odd. I know it's supposed to be the air beneath his quills/dreads, but it still doesn't make much sense anatomically.

In Archie he does have the excuse of being mutated by Chaos energy when he was a baby...but I guess "he glides because he has radioactive hair!" doesn't make much more sense.XD

[Flyboy Fox]

Perhaps we're expecting too much 'sense' from a comic book about talking animal people with weird powers relating to a bunch of pretty gems =P

Aww well. Picking stuff apart is entertaining, if rarely fruitful.

[Blazey Firekitty]

Perhaps we're expecting too much 'sense' from a comic book about talking animal people with weird powers relating to a bunch of pretty gems =P

Aww well. Picking stuff apart is entertaining, if rarely fruitful.

Yeah it can be fun to think about what makes the impossible possible. Like how Turbo Tails can conjure a cape from nowhere.^_~

[nuckles87]

Heres the review for SU #8, from Drazen.

HEAD: I've already voiced my displeasure with the ending of

the Team Dark arc (SU1-4), which managed to undercut whatever

edge Shadow, Rouge and even Omega brought to the story. Same

here: a daikaiju (Japanese movie monster like Godzilla) getting

bested by a couple of preschoolers? What's up with that?

Fortunately, Archie has told us exactly what's up with that.

In the same way that a response to a letter to the editor in the

infamous Sonic #49 took time out in the middle of the Endgame arc

to explain the concept of Loose Continuity, Editorial did the

exact same thing in response to a letter that appeared in Sonic

Universe #7:

"While the comics will sometimes have their darker'

moments, we're really more interested in telling fun stories.

You can have fun with a little bit of an edge, but you can't

really be all grim-and-gritty and still be accessible to

everyone. We're sure you'll like where we go with things,

though!"

This seems to parallel the lesson Sega itself learned when

it comes to video game production. In the old-time side-

scrollers, there wasn't much room for grim-and-gritty. That

changed with Sonic Adventure. The disappearance of the ancient

echidna civilization was brought on by Chaos's rage against its

war-mongering chief who dared to try to exploit the Chaos

Emeralds in his drive for conquest and the willingness of his

troops to run roughshod over Tikal and the Chao to do it. OK, it

wasn't highlighted in graphic detail, but anyone playing the game

should have gotten the idea. Heck, even when Sonic is

contemplating going super against Chaos, an Offstage Voice in the

English dub shouting "Yeah, Sonic!" in what's supposed to be an

encouraging tone is so badly dubbed in it sounds phoney and

awkward, as if it were meant to erase the thought that maybe,

just maybe, Chaos had already killed off a bunch of the Station

Squares. That game moment called for IMO an eerie, ominous

silence during which Sonic weighs his options and reaches his

decision. In fact, I got the same phoney and awkward sense

reading this story. "The damage has been pretty minimal so far

no injuries." I'm sorry, I'm not buying that for a second.

And it's been that way with most of the later Sonic games.

The death of Maria at the hand of G.U.N. is the emotional

lynchpin of Sonic Adventure 2 and the key to understanding

Shadow's personality. The fate of the future world Silver tries

to avert in Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) doesn't leave room for the

possibility of "no injuries." Merlina's mindset in Sonic And The

Black Knight is especially dark, though it sets up the amazing

(for Sonic) line about living life to the fullest in the time you

have. In Sonic Unleashed you have Chip fading and his "I'll

never forget you" voice-over after the professor yammers on about

light and dark coexisting.

The current message, according to Sega, is that you can't

please everyone and guess what, they're not going to try anymore:

" If you read everything, we need to be all things to all gamers

with Sonic, and that's a difficult thing to do,' said Mike Hayes,

the head of Sega Europe and, as of last month, the head of Sega

of America as well. Trying to put everything into one game and

making everybody happy is impossible. And I think that's

something clear going forward.'

"So as Sega proceeds to, in Hayes' words, review our Sonic road

map,' fans young and old should prepare for an approach that will

produce Sonic games that won't satisfy everyone at once.

"Sega's core Sonic target, in fact, isn't those who grew up with

Sonic. It's those who are growing up now. It very much is in

that under 12 group,' Hayes said. And what we have to do is make

a Sonic that is of a quality that delights that audience, first

and foremost. I'd argue that we very much achieved that with

products like Sonic Heroes on PS2, and I think we did that with

Mario and Sonic 1 on Wii and DS. I think we did it some ways with

Sonic and the Secret Rings on Wii. I think [the Wii's Sonic and

the] Black Knight was a good game.'

"Hayes is less satisfied with Sega's execution of those Sonic

games that have been on the more powerful Xbox 360 and PS3

platforms. I think we've had challenges with [the 2006] Sonic

the Hedgehog and Unleashed,' he said. [The 2006 game] Sonic the

Hedgehog sells extremely well at a budget price. So clearly it's

very popular with a young audience. But first and foremost is:

We've got to make a quality game for that audience. Does quality

mean it's got to be a Metacritic 90 percent? Well not

necessarily. It's just got to be quality that's appropriate for

them. Then we've got our core fans, and what we need to do is now

and then produce a Sonic that will appeal to those fans

specifically.'" [source: Kotaku,

http://kotaku.com/5336675/sega-impossible-to-please-all-sonic-fan

s-with-one-sonic-game]

It's the off-hand reference to "our core fans" that

interests me. It looks like, after all these years, Archie

Comics and Sega of America are finally on the same page when it

comes to looking at the Sonic fandom. Unfortunately, they've

both come to see their core audience as the preadolescent boy

market of the moment.

As for the comic, we've already noted that the prevailing

editorial philosophy is going to be fun with a bit of an edge

rather than edge with a bit of fun. Hey, it's their book and

they're going to slant it toward their "core fans."

It's not like there isn't an alternative out there on the

Net. As of this writing, there are just over 16,000 Sonic the

Hedgehog fanfics at fanfiction.net alone. And I sincerely doubt

that most of them were written by preadolescent boys. So Sonic

isn't leaving anytime soon and he belongs as much to those of us

who "play with him" by doing fanart or fanfiction than he does to

Sega or Archie.

That's good because this story's conclusion was extremely

dubious. OK, Sonic doesn't floor Tikhaos on the first try; but

then his two KIDS deliver the coup de grace? I'm sorry, but

that's just wrong! I can tell that Archie wanted to dial down

the menace by slipping in the "no casualties" line, but this is

just too much! It literally makes going after the final boss

look like FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

And Ian indulges in Loose Continuity in this story with a

vengeance. We don't know what becomes of Shadow. We don't know

what becomes of Lien-Da. We don't know what happened between

Lien-Da and Rutan and what Lara-Su might/might not have had to do

with it. We don't know how Antoine's and Bunnie's kids ended up

with cybernetic enhancements. We don't know what will become of

Tikal; hopefully she'll be treated a little more humanely. We

don't even know if Dr. Fin has reappeared in the comic's present

or its future, a problem which would have been solved with a

simple text box alteration. This is loose continuity that's so

loose it's liquid.

I know Ian has been writing this comic for some time, and

overall I like his work, but after the bad ending for the

previous arc and now this one, I have to wonder whether his

working for two titles at the same time isn't taking its toll.

At the very least it's beginning to look like he could use the

services of a closer for his Sonic Universe stories. Head Score:

5.

EYE: Yardley!'s work is again faultless, plus he gets to

prove himself in large set pieces where Tikhaos is on the

rampage. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: In addition to the Sonic family interchanges (I loved

Manic's motor-mouthed run-on sentence on page [7]), Ian also

dangles several possible relationships among the Freedom Fighters

2.0 in front of our eyes, particularly Jacques and Melody. And I

liked the moment where Mina gets all fuzzy and domestic in the

middle of rescuing her kids. Nice touch. Unfortunately, that

was offset by the way the Tikal-Chaos plot was left hanging.

Heart Score: 6.

I liked the comic more then Drazen did, but I admit the ending was kinda underwhelming after the really strong first bunch of issues.

[Megasponge]

SONIC UNIVERSE #10

"Echoes of the Past Part Two": As Knuckles' friends try to valiantly defend the Master Emerald against a seemingly never-ending horde of robots, Knuckles delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding him... until he finally finds Dr. Finitevus! Knuckles is bent on revenge, but he's not counting on the surprise twist that will delay his quest. You can't afford to miss this exciting, action-packed issue!

SCRIPT: Ian Flynn

ART: Tracy Yardley

Shipping Date: November 11th, 2009

On Sale at Comic Shops: November 18th, 2009

Newsstands: December 1st, 2009

32-page, full color comic

$2.50 US

[Blazey Firekitty]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Vector and Ray will be rescued by the Downunda Freedom Fighters.

[Flyboy Fox]

Knuckles is going to get severe jaw-ache if he keeps scowling like that 90% of the time.

[Blazey Firekitty]

Knuckles is going to get severe jaw-ache if he keeps scowling like that 90% of the time.

It's all part of him trying to win back his "Sonic's number one rival" position from Shadow.XD

[nuckles87]

He never lost it. He just lets Shadow thinks he did cause he's modest.

[Agent York]

He never lost it. He just lets Shadow thinks he did cause he's modest.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Dusk the Crypt Keeper

[Megasponge]

SONIC UNIVERSE #13

"Journey into the East Part One: Endless Reach of Fate": After a fierce battle with the Spider Ninjas, Sonic rescues Sally, Tails and Monkey Khan from the Gossamer Clan Cave in which they've been imprisoned. Things get introspective as Sally blames herself for the recent turn of events, but when they all meet the Bride of the Endless Reach, our heroes realize they are in the middle of a much bigger picture than they thought! Ties into this month's SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #210

SCRIPT: Ian Flynn

ART: Tracy Yardley.

Shipping Date: February 10th, 2010

On Sale at Comic Shops: February 17th, 2010

Newsstands: March 2nd, 2010

32-page, full color comic

$2.50 US

[Illuminous_Orb]

There's no solicits yet for #210.

[Ducktor Naldush]

That's...Nicole under the control of the Iron Queen? Wow, really weird.

God, I'm still hating Monkey Khan, and now we have an entire saga about him? Tch, what a shame...

Edit: No, wait a second, wait! Wasn't Sonic Universe supposed to be a collection of stories out of the principal story?

Edited November 15, 2009 by Franlight

[redmenace]

Universe cover's right top part looks nice but the drama in the summary puts me off.

Look at that last cover, it looks like Sonic was pasted over a vacant space as an afterthought (oh, what mean things about this...). I get the yellow / blue divisions of forces, but Sonic's design looks very different from the three FF on the bottom, even the eyes, shoes, chest are coloured and the others aren't.

Edited November 15, 2009 by redmenace

[Illuminous_Orb]

Universe cover's right top part looks nice but the drama in the summary puts me off.

Look at that last cover, it looks like Sonic was pasted over a vacant space as an afterthought (oh, what mean things about this...). I get the yellow / blue divisions of forces, but Sonic's design looks very different from the three FF on the bottom, even the eyes, shoes, chest are coloured and the others aren't.

Don't worry, the covers aren't ready yet. The coloring looks unfinished at this point, as if the artists just wanted to do a few touch-ups before they can give them to Archie for the preview release (Hunzeker, the main cover colorist, isn't even credeted yet). We're going to have to wait until the issue is about to be released for the finished version.

EDIT: In fact...

Just to let everyone know, and this is highly unusual, but 210 will 99.9% certainly have a COMPLETELY different cover than this one. This is because the current cover was needed very quickly for solicitations, and after some thought, we all thought we should take it in a different direction. I'll be mean and not post my inks for it right now.

And, by the way, Ben Hunzeker did do the colors for SU13's cover, and I must say I love the color scheme he went with.

Edited November 16, 2009 by Emerl

[Megasponge]

Tracy Yardley had this to say about the main book's cover:

Just to let everyone know, and this is highly unusual, but 210 will 99.9% certainly have a COMPLETELY different cover than this one. This is because the current cover was needed very quickly for solicitations, and after some thought, we all thought we should take it in a different direction. I'll be mean and not post my inks for it right now.

And, by the way, Ben Hunzeker did do the colors for SU13's cover, and I must say I love the color scheme he went with.

Also Ian said this about the SU arc:

Okay, so I have no idea how much I can say right now, but considering the cat's out of the bag, I do want to point something out:

"Journey to the East" will be directly tied to the events of "Iron Dominion," but it won't be required reading. If you read only STH, you will still get the beef of the story. Likewise, the adventuring in SU will be pretty self-contained.

We did not want to force people to read both books. That's just a cheap gimmick. If you want the 100% whole story, yes, you'll need to read both. But if you stick with just regular STH you won't be left out in the cold.

Edited November 16, 2009 by Megasponge

[SchemingMinor]

There's no solicits yet for #210.

Is that...Geoffry St. John on that cover?

[nuckles87]

New review from Drazen regarding 205. It's a good one .

HEAD: There is literally nothing new about Sonic and Eggman

being on the same side. In Sonic Adventure 2 they have to work

together to keep from burning up in Earth's(?) atmosphere as the

ARK's orbit decays. In Sonic Heroes they face a common foe in a

Megalomaniac Metal Sonic. Back in S27's "Scrambled Hedgehog,"

Sonic suffers from the Old Amnesia Bit and throws in with

Robotnik because he's been convinced that he already works for

the Doc. And in the "No Brainer" episode from the second season

of SatAM Sonic, it's the exact same story.

So what's different here? This time it's the Doc who's on

the receiving end of the trauma in question, but so far he hasn't

come over to the side of the Mobians. All he's managed to do is

to reboot enough to spring himself, chew out Snively, hijack the

Egg Tortoise, punch Sonic in the nose, and then pretty much pass

out. Not exactly the "team-up" that the cover shouted about.

But since when has a comic book cover been an accurate reflection

of the contents?

It's really no big news that Robotnik is only hitting on one

cylinder at the moment. Some other developments, however, are

more worthy of note.

The most noteworthy development is the breakdown in the

villains' organization. The Queen may have been able to have

things her own way when she was whipping Bunnie around like a

marionette, but she's apparently unaware that her middle

management structure is coming apart like a band on VH1's "Behind

The Music." I'm not sure if Dimitri has taken advantage of the

disruptors that were supposed to disable the dreadlock detonators

(which is what got him cheesed off at the Queen back in S201),

but he's definitely chosen the path of passive-aggressive

insubordination, with Lien-Da following his lead. My guess is,

this is going to cause Queenie trouble.

It's kind of sad that, in a veritable admission of defeat,

Ian has pretty much written Conquering Storm out of the story at

this point by having Queenie send her back to the Dragon Kingdom

and out of harm's way. That means that Connie has brought

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to this story in the five issues that the arc

has run to date. See, this is what I mean by "wasted potential"

being a trademark of the writing for this comic. Not that anyone

else is sitting on their hands. RedDragonZero, for one, has

already introduced Connie into a fanfic, I'm sure others out

there can see the potential, and one fanart depiction of Connie

has already appeared in this comic. Having introduced her

without fleshing her out, it's nobody's fault but Archie's what

happens to her when the fans start playing with her, or any other

character for that matter.

Don't ask me what Queen Queenie (a literal paraphrase of

"Queen Regina") thinks she can accomplish by using her

technomagic against a flesh-and-blood hedgehog. She may have had

the advantage exploiting Bunnie, but this changes the dynamic.

I'll discuss the interlude in Bunnie's hospital room a

little later; for the moment, it's worth noting that after the

previous issue's scene of the Mobians turning into a simian

support group, here it's simply Second Verse, Same As The First.

The only attraction to this story is watching the plans of the

villains come apart. And after the past 4 issues, that's good

enough for me. Head Score: 8.

EYE: It may just be me, but Bunnie looks entirely too good

to be in hospital. I wouldn't be surprised if she checks herself

out Against Medical Advice and joins Sonic at a butt-kicking

party in the next issue. Otherwise, Butler's artwork is

impeccable, unless you get the impression, as I did, that the

Queen's Dramatic Pose got overworked. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: Oddly enough, the character on the receiving end of

the most Heart in this story is Robotnik himself.

Sonic and Tails supply the sympathy by debating how far to

go in battling the Doc. After all, Sonic is still smarting under

the sense that he's responsible for sending Robotnik over the

edge, though Eggman probably didn't need that much of a nudge.

It's a serious consideration for the two, even if it does have

the effect of bringing the story to a dead halt until Robotnik

tries to flatten Sonic's nose.

Comic book villains being comic book villains, it's rare for

this book's heroes to cut any of them some slack. But even as

Robotnik is starting to look like old news even to Sega (he was

pretty much limited to his usual shtick in "Sonic Unleashed" and

was completely AWOL from "Sonic And The Black Knight"), Sonic

still thinks it's worth a shot to reach out to the Doc. The

results were predictable and any detente is likely to be short-

lived, but you gotta love the Blue Blur for trying. My guess is

that it won't last very long, especially when Eggman finishes

rebooting and goes back to declaring total war on Sonic and his

friends. Still, it's an interesting development while it lasts.

Heart Score: 9.

HEAD: I had to do a little research to remember who did what

to whom and when in the Lien-Da family history, but it was worth

it. There was no way Ian could have shoe-horned anything like an

extensive family history into a five-pager without slowing the

story to a crawl. It was enough that he had to balance the

flashback action with a Kommissar commentary from Lien-Da.

She reels off the names of those who've kept her down. She

reduced her father Luger to cigarette ash, which was the point of

this flashback. Kragok bought the farm in S100's "Welcome To The

Dark Side" when, slipping out of the Twilight Cage in pursuit of

Tobor, they both got killed, though we only saw Tobor being

escorted into Guardian/Echidna Heaven by Hawking. And since

Remington is unavailable, that narrows down the number of targets

to Dimitri. Of course, she's picked a fine time to settle a

grudge, but nobody ever said that comic book villains are known

for their impeccable timing. Head Score: 10.

EYE: Great work by Jamal Peppers here, though the minimalist

backgrounds could be interpreted in one of two ways: either he

wanted to depict the Dark Legion in a rather spartan setting, or

else he didn't have the time to do major background art. The

former explanation is more charitable, and it works for me, so

there. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: In a simply 5-pager, I usually don't have very high

Heart expectations, so when there is a Heart factor I take

notice. And that's what we get here.

It may or may not have been deliberate on the part of Mike

Pellerito, but there's a telling symmetry in comparing Bunnie's

hospital room scene in "All The Eggs In One Basket" with Lien-

Da's recuperation here. Not to beg the question of differences

in talent between Steve Butler and Jamal Peppers, but Butler

gives Bunnie a well-lit hospital room that's also fairly crowded:

Sonic, Khan, Antoine, Dr. Quack and Nicole all share the space

with Bunnie at some point. Now look at Lien-Da's accommodations.

I haven't seen anything this bare and depressing since Rei

Ayanami's apartment in "Neon Genesis Evangelion." And the

desolation is only deepened as Kragok drops in to tell her that

he's screwed her over and taken the Grand Master office for

himself. Bunnie's scene ends with her as friendly and jovial as

she ever was; that makes the panel showing the wounded Lien-Da

being left alone to cry even more powerful by comparison.

Ian has taken pains to show that, rightly or wrongly, Lien-

Da has a major grievance which she's let warp her so that now

she's close to the edge and on the verge of doing something

really stupid at a really bad time, almost as stupid as her

allowing Shadow to loose Tikhaos on the world in Sonic Universe

#7. But it does allow us a rare moment of character development

and, with it, an understanding of how and why she's about to do

what she's about to do. The major tragedy, of course, is that in

this comic such character development IS so rare. Heart Score:

10.

[Megasponge]

Is that...Geoffry St. John on that cover?

Yep, that's St. John. I guess the Secret Service will be helping the FFs fight against the ID forces.

Also, Tracy had a new update on the cover:

Here's the final coloring. We may still get some use out of it somehow. Jason Jensen is doing the colors on the new cover. And Steven Butler is penciling 210 fyi.

[The-Master-Board]

So much for not having to read/buy Sonic Universe to keep up to date with the main storyline (even though I do get both anyway). As if the whole "you dont have to have read SU to know whats going on, but you wont be 100% in on it" isn't a huge cop out. If there's a story people are going to want to know the full details of the arc if those details are out there - cop out.

I thought SU was going to be something different? Not some second running series dedicated to always compliment the main storyline. Why not use this second series to do the game adaptations properly, I'd much rather have that then a disjointed main storyline over two series. Why not use this series to flesh out some of the lesser seen villians? I'd love to see a Nack arc, get to see what makes the dirty weasel tick, or maybe get some more info on Bean and Bark, seriously, those guys just turned up all those issues ago to make trouble on Sonic's b'day then we've seen little and learnt even less of them since.

So far IMO Sonic Universe has been the height of lame so far.

Also hoorah for lame covers again.

[jutgf]

He never lost it. He just lets Shadow thinks he did cause he's modest.

LOL is this before or after Shadow beats the wimp out of Knuckles and makes him look stupid as a rival character and a badass foil to Sonic?

[Megasponge]

Here's the cover again:

Here's the final coloring. We may still get some use out of it somehow. Jason Jensen is doing the colors on the new cover. And Steven Butler is penciling 210 fyi.

And here's the #210 solicit:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #210

Written by Ian Flynn, art by Steven Butler.

"Home Invasion Part One": In the aftermath of the "Iron Dominion" saga, things are bleaker than ever for our heroes, as one after another is "legionized." Amy, Geoffrey St. John, Rotor and the others do their best to be brave in the face of impending doom. But Eggman, the Iron Queen and Snively aren't exactly seeing eye to eye, which may provide hope for our heroes. Not to mention the intrepid team of first-rank heroes waiting for the proper moment to swoop in like the cavalry! Ties into this month's Sonic Universe #13.

32 pages, $2.50, in stores on March 3.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Megasponge

[JaidynReiman]

So much for not having to read/buy Sonic Universe to keep up to date with the main storyline (even though I do get both anyway). As if the whole "you dont have to have read SU to know whats going on, but you wont be 100% in on it" isn't a huge cop out. If there's a story people are going to want to know the full details of the arc if those details are out there - cop out.

I thought SU was going to be something different? Not some second running series dedicated to always compliment the main storyline. Why not use this second series to do the game adaptations properly, I'd much rather have that then a disjointed main storyline over two series. Why not use this series to flesh out some of the lesser seen villians? I'd love to see a Nack arc, get to see what makes the dirty weasel tick, or maybe get some more info on Bean and Bark, seriously, those guys just turned up all those issues ago to make trouble on Sonic's b'day then we've seen little and learnt even less of them since.

So far IMO Sonic Universe has been the height of lame so far.

Also hoorah for lame covers again.

...they already said that Sonic Universe #13-#16 isn't required to know the whole story... and its self-contained. It is tied to the Iron Dominion saga, but its still isolated from the main story.

[SchemingMinor]

And here's the #210 solicit:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #210

Written by Ian Flynn, art by Steven Butler.

"Home Invasion Part One": In the aftermath of the "Iron Dominion" saga, things are bleaker than ever for our heroes, as one after another is "legionized." Amy, Geoffrey St. John, Rotor and the others do their best to be brave in the face of impending doom. But Eggman, the Iron Queen and Snively aren't exactly seeing eye to eye, which may provide hope for our heroes. Not to mention the intrepid team of first-rank heroes waiting for the proper moment to swoop in like the cavalry! Ties into this month's Sonic Universe #13.

32 pages, $2.50, in stores on March 3.

I smell a Deus Ex Machina in the wings here.

I wonder since St. John is tagging along that we will see some Hershey action in this issue? Would be nice, since we haven't seen her in a while plus, one of the comic book shop owners I randomly visit can stop wondering where "Geoffry and Hershey went."

[Illuminous_Orb]

#210's cover has been updated.

Dear god, Amy? XD