Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[KoDaiko]

If people really say "Chip took Tail's role as a Sonic's bro/buddy!", it sounds like a yandere thing for some reason.

Chip is Sonic's buddy in Unleashed, but that doesn't mean Tails is not his buddy anymore. Also Chip only appears in one game and Sonic helps and sorta takes characters under his wing all the time in other games with Tails still being helpful to him. Not all game have Tails doing something with Sonic from the beginning. Some of them have Sonic either accidentally or intentionally meets Tails somewhere later in the game where he gives information and all that. 

I guess to them Tails' only characteristic is "being the main duo of the story with Sonic" and lacks any traits other than that.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Sonic Unleashed went more intimate with its cast and that this is perceived as a negative to correct, as not a valid choice, will forever annoy me.

In the case of the adaptation, it ties to a more generalised annoyance to Archie feeling the need to just keep up with this huge cast, which often results in not even using them nicely, just as background paint to point at and go "there they are!". Would much rather only see characters like Sally or Antoine once a year, but have their appearances be much more memorable.

[Forte-Metallix]

23 minutes ago, The KKM said:

Sonic Unleashed went more intimate with its cast and that this is perceived as a negative to correct, as not a valid choice, will forever annoy me.

In the case of the adaptation, it ties to a more generalised annoyance to Archie feeling the need to just keep up with this huge cast, which often results in not even using them nicely, just as background paint to point at and go "there they are!". Would much rather only see characters like Sally or Antoine once a year, but have their appearances be much more memorable.

I don't think that's a reasonable request, seeing as they're two of the protagonists.

And the purpose of the Shattered World Saga is to reestablish everyone in this new continuity. Supporting characters will get more time in the spotlight in later stories in either book, but the major players for now are the Freedom Fighters and Chip.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Sure that's the purpose of the saga, but it's coming at the expense of Unleashed (if you actually liked what Unleashed did) in a really confusing way because it feels like Ian needed an excuse to world tour, which, well, is dumb. There's been world tours before :V

And I think that's a perfectly reasonable request because I'd rather the protagonists be taken down to pretty much just Sonic and Tails, if not Sonic only. In the main book, at least. I really don't think the format Archie Sonic publishes in works for trying to maintain a 7-people-protagonist story logic. Rare books do. Rare stories do. Doubly so since the usual solution is to therefore focus on specific members one at a time, but you can't do that here because you need to always be focusing on Sonic too.

[brohman428]

I will say, I personally wouldn't have minded seeing more of Knuckles and Chip together. They played off of each other surprisingly well, as well as with the Chaotix and Tikal (wish we could've seen their conversation in the Hidden Palace). By comparison, Sonic and Chip haven't really interacted much at all really. It just seems that when we get to the inevitable conclusion, Chip saying good-bye to Sonic will probably ring a bit hollow. 

As for Chip allegedly stealing Tails' role in Unleashed, I'm not entirely sure what Tails' role would've been in that story outside of what he's given. I mean maybe some of all three of them interacting would've been nice, but other than that Sonic and Chip, their relationship, and through it Chip connecting with Earth that was at the forefront.

[Tyranno]

Unleashed is already a pretty good story on its own. I have no problem with its events being reinterpreted for the sake of doing something different as long as there's a point and we get something worthwhile in the end.

[DarkLight]

Changing for the sake of changing strikes me as a bad reasoning for adapting any previous work. It tells me that someone cares more about *fixing* what was ohsowrong with the original while not remembering to keep what made it appealing to begin with. As well as a "fuck you it's my vision, I'll do what I want!" mentality that's frankly immature and I do not wish to condone.

That's why I don't like this "adaption." An adaption should both improve the areas where the source material suffered while keeping in what made It work. Here, it's more about the former under the guise that it's merely a 'framing device' for exploring the new continuity. Even though there was really no need to shoehorn Unleashed in any capacity to do that. 

But go ahead and call me out for dare having a dissenting opinion on Archie Sonic and refusing to adhere that everything it does is so perfect that I should suddenly dislike what the games did and act like they never did anything right.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

28 minutes ago, DarkLight said:

But go ahead and call me out for dare having a dissenting opinion on Archie Sonic and refusing to adhere that everything it does is so perfect that I should suddenly dislike what the games did and act like they never did anything right.

Who actually says that? Serious question.

It's like House of Cards and Worlds Unite wasn't even a thing even people who like Archie Sonic criticize to hell and back.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

On 4/10/2016 at 4:22 PM, KoDaiko said:

If people really say "Chip took Tail's role as a Sonic's bro/buddy!", it sounds like a yandere thing for some reason.

Chip is Sonic's buddy in Unleashed, but that doesn't mean Tails is not his buddy anymore. Also Chip only appears in one game and Sonic helps and sorta takes characters under his wing all the time in other games with Tails still being helpful to him. Not all game have Tails doing something with Sonic from the beginning. Some of them have Sonic either accidentally or intentionally meets Tails somewhere later in the game where he gives information and all that. 

I guess to them Tails' only characteristic is "being the main duo of the story with Sonic" and lacks any traits other than that.

Besides, I'd like to see Sonic have a close relationship with someone other than Tails.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well, he has plenty of close relationships with other character's here. In fact, the only characters I don't ever recall him interacting with has to be Omega, and I don't think they interacted that much with each other in Worlds Collide.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 hour ago, DarkLight said:

Changing for the sake of changing strikes me as a bad reasoning for adapting any previous work. It tells me that someone cares more about *fixing* what was ohsowrong with the original while not remembering to keep what made it appealing to begin with. As well as a "fuck you it's my vision, I'll do what I want!" mentality that's frankly immature and I do not wish to condone.

I don't think that's what it is at all. Given they had to do the reboot, Unleashed probably felt like a good fit for what they needed/wanted to do anyway. I don't think "fixing" was a part of it, just "we need to do this and this and maybe this, and adapting this seems like it would allow us to cover those bases AND bring in some stuff people have been wanting to see."

[Zaysho]

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this arc, most of them pretty much surfaced after "Champions," primarily because "Worlds Unite" was a waste of three or four months (I don't even remember), and I find the recent issues largely rushed and attempting to juggle a little too much, especially with the split between A and B stories.

For me, I have few qualms with the comics using Unleashed as a backdrop and being fairly loose as far as an "adaptation." Honestly, I don't even read it as an adaptation, and I see that as both a good and a bad thing.

Good because it allows the comic to take familiar elements and mix them with others to do something interesting, especially when it comes to bringing the other SEGA characters into the fray, without being weighed down by the baggage of being too similar to the games.

Bad because the current formatting has downplayed a lot of what was interesting about Unleashed, and with the conclusion so close on the horizon, attempts to cram too much into the on-going with very little crossover into Sonic Universe, where the stories share the backdrop but are largely self-contained that it does feel disconnected and adds to the rushed feeling in the on-going. For example, I can't help but feel Chip's overall role is fairly diminished following his introduction (which I did like), and Tikal just handing his identity to him kind of kills a big part of his arc.

 

THAT ALL SAID....

 

I'd actually appreciate it if we could cool it with some of the heated attitudes I'm seeing at least on this page. I went back a couple pages and didn't really see anything out of order, but I'm seeing something that crops up once in a while and I'd like to address it. I'm tired of the attitudes from those who prefer the games basically accusing some who either like, or at least doesn't mind, the differences in the comic (it being an alternate universe and all) as placing the comic on a pedestal. I also can't help but feel the attitudes in response to the former occasionally use the fact that the comic is an AU as some kind of point against the complaints in general. And I know I've been guilty of the latter, myself.

It's these sorts of attitudes that honestly make this thread a chore to read and participate in as just someone with an interest in the book in general, and I don't think it's unfair for those to air their grievances about how the book's handled the game elements anymore than I don't think it's unfair to point out that the comic isn't the same universe so it can be a little more loose with those elements. The comic is still based on the games, so a general conversation about how the two compare (regardless of your preference--me? I like the comics better) seems perfectly applicable, especially for this story arc, as well as the general worldview of the comics without needing to resort to this sort of thing at all. I saw more reasonable looking posts a page ago, so, dial it back, huh?

[brohman428]

Unleashed, while I like the story overall, did have problems that I think the comic is addressing, although not quite to the extent that I would like at times. Probably my biggest issue being that while the entire world is shattered (ya know, THE WHOLE WORLD) nobody really reacts to it. At most, it's treated as more of an inconvenience than anything. Here, shattering the world has consequences for just about everyone. The Freedom Fighters had to rescue people caught in all the chaos, GUN and Eggman have their forces stretched thin trying to keep things under control, Breezie and her media business are booming because people are trying to distract themselves from the whole situation, etc. I also like the efforts to tie elements of Unleashed back to pre-existing concepts, such as bringing in Tikal and Knuckles (always struck me as weird that neither they or the Master Emerald weren't even mentioned in the original game).

That said, I do wish that some of these ideas were given more time (as I said before, I wish we got more of Chip and Tikal) but I know part of that was because Worlds Unite put a lot of things on hold and was overall a waste of time but enough of that dead horse. As some have said before, I don't really mind Unleashed being used more as a backdrop to explore this new world, since a huge part of Unleashed was just travelling around and seeing the world. In the game, outside of the beginning, the scene with Chip's realization, and towards the end, there's not a whole lot of real story going on and travelling around really is all Sonic and Chip are doing. Now as for the comic, I can complain about not spending enough time in some of these places, but I feel they're just trying to get to the end at this point, and there's nothing stopping them from returning to these places later (the Egg Bosses are still active obviously).     

[DarkLight]

This is why I try to refrain from expressing my thoughts on this topic. I express actual grievances, people either swat them away or trivialize them by saying "it's just adapting/making Unleashed better guys! Grow up!" which just makes feel they're giving the comic way too much praise than it deserves and treating like what came before wasn't that great to garner respect whatsoever.

I offer the suggestion that an adaption should improve flaws while complimenting it's strengths. Once again, swatted away. And almost nowhere did I treat anybody who does like the Unleashed adaption like crap for liking it. Care to share me the same courtesy, please? Or have I just not earned it?

I am just tired and bitter. Tired of these circular arguments where both sides learn nothing and understand each other and bitter that people use the comic's strengths as a means to take a stab at the games, i.e what the comics are meant to embody.

I'm sorry for contributing to this heated attitude stuff, but as I said. I'm tired of this. Wake me when it's free to express an opinion around here without being accused of being a purist.  

[Dejimon11]

7 minutes ago, DarkLight said:

This is why I try to refrain from expressing my thoughts on this topic. I express actual grievances, people either swat them away or trivialize them by saying "it's just adapting/making Unleashed better guys! Grow up!" which just makes feel they're giving the comic way too much praise than it deserves and treating like what came before wasn't that great to garner respect whatsoever.

I offer the suggestion that an adaption should improve flaws while complimenting it's strengths. Once again, swatted away. And almost nowhere did I treat anybody who does like the Unleashed adaption like crap for liking it. Care to share me the same courtesy, please? Or have I just not earned it?

I am just tired and bitter. Tired of these circular arguments where both sides learn nothing and understand each other and bitter that people use the comic's strengths as a means to take a stab at the games, i.e what the comics are meant to embody.

I'm sorry for contributing to this heated attitude stuff, but as I said. I'm tired of this. Wake me when it's free to express an opinion around here without being accused of being a purist.  

There is nothing wrong with expressing your opinion just try not to come off as hostile this applies to both sides. If you don't like what's going on fine but also try to explain what's wrong what could of been improve besides saying "I don't like this it ruins spirit of unleashed". I'm not implying that it's what your saying but there's different ways of expressing opinions without going through the argument cycle that's been going on for years now. 

[DarkLight]

I have explained why I don't like it. And I have tried to make it sound like I wasn't insulting people who do like the comic. But nobody wants to listen. All because I have nothing interesting to say anymore? Because I'm some over-sensitive bitch who just wants to like what she likes? What is it pry tell is wrong with me here? 

I don't want to hate this comic is doing. But I do hate having to reiterate my thoughts each and every time, only for it to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. If that alone doesn't start making you feel tired and bitter, then I'm not sure what can. 

[Kuzu]

Its amazing how even nowadays, we still have heated arguments about a comic adaptation of a video game mascot. This site never actually changes does it. 

 

Anyway, I'm gonna agree with the mixed feelings of this arc as well; while there are certain concepts and ideas I like, such as the crisis being large enough where all of the characters are scrambling and trying to work together to fix everything, as well as the fleshing out of some of the supporting cast. 

However, it does feel like its kind of lost what made Unleashed...well, Unleashed. Now whether you liked Unleashed or not, its kind of a disservice to the game to bring in elements of it, and remove what made the game tick to begin with. Chip's role is severely downplayed due to having share the spotlight with almost everyone else, and as such, his relationship is severely lacking in development. Sonic & Chip's relationship are literally the heart and soul of Unleashed, and removing it just takes a lot of the emotional investment away from both characters. 

Its like, this arc is trying to have its cake and eat it too; It wants to be both a grand, comic book-esc, world saving adventure while also wanting to be an adaptation of an existing property and the latter element is suffering severely because of it. Personally, I would have either made this a legit Unleashed adaptation by cutting down the main characters to just Sonic, Chip, and Tails. Have the rest of the Freedom Fighters still collecting Gaia Keys and helping people, but relegate it to Sonic Universe arcs while the main book is focused on the trio helping Chip find his memories and gathering info on how to stop this. 

Or, just get rid of all the Unleashed elements to begin with.

3 minutes ago, DarkLight said:

I have explained why I don't like it. And I have tried to make it sound like I wasn't insulting people who do like the comic. But nobody wants to listen. All because I have nothing interesting to say anymore? Because I'm some over-sensitive bitch who wants to like what she likes? What is it pry tell? 

I don't want to hate this comic is doing. But I do hate having to reiterate my thoughts each and every time, only for it to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. If that alone doesn't start making you feel tired and bitter, then I'm not sure what can. 

You could just take a break if you're getting that upset...

[Dejimon11]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Its amazing how even nowadays, we still have heated arguments about a comic adaptation of a video game mascot. This site never actually changes does it. 

And to be honest stuff like this really isn't helping the situation.

[Kuzu]

1 minute ago, Dejimon11 said:

And to be honest stuff like this really isn't helping the situation.

I kinda feel like it needed to be said. 

[Mauro Fonseca]

Problem there is, don't know what DarkLight's take on it is, but as far as I go there really isn't anything that could be done to improve this adaptation without a radical change to the comic itself.

 

Unleashed's strength is that it's, despite the scope of the plot, an emotionally personal, small-scale story. It's Sonic, though his travels and his ease with his new condition, showing his love of the Earth to, well, the Earth, and letting said Earth discover how great it is and how great its people are. There's no Knuckles, Shadow, etc. because they're irrelevant to the story overall. Tails and Amy aren't, more just so we have comparison points to Sonic's condition and to how his relations normally are (thus giving more for Chip to learn). It can have as many characters as you want, but they need to be secondary, they need to be things for Sonic and Chip to visit and learn from, objects to be acted on, pretty much, since the focus above all has to be the almost tourist-y world arc.

 

The comic simply can't do this, because, either because of Ian or Paul or maybe both for all I know, it refuses to drop its ensemble cast format, and its superhero action format. For the comic to do an actually good Unleashed arc, in my opinion, includiong comic characters, you'd need to have dropped the Freedom Fighters as a concept first (EDIT: In the sense Sonic, at the very least, needs to not be in them. The other characters can remain as their paramilitary strike team for all I care, even if I think that's doing them a disservice); then studied well how they adapted to their local cultures and how said cultures reflect the real world (to avoid things like how the Shamar Freedom Fighters look nothing like the locals); and THEN, integrate them in in the same way as the NPCs of the game- characters to be visited. You could add some more drama, sure, show some more consequences to the disaster, but overall, it'd need to be an episodic thing, maybe done in one or two years depending how much you'd want to hijack Universe, about Sonic and Chip going, in their search for the Gaia Keys and more importantly just on their travelling the world, to meet various world peoples, various cultures, and having said encounters be expanded a bit more than in the game.

 

THEN, if you wanted, now you guaranteed the main comic is actually doing a good adaptation of Unleashed that expands on its strengths instead of fighting against them, you could use Universe to explore the more prosaic questions outside of the scope of the Unleashed story. It's in Universe that things like "but what's Knuckles doing during this" get answered. Sonic gets to be Cloverfield, focusing on the characters' trials and not on explaining the world as much, and Universe gets to be the extra explanation for those who care.

 

Instead, Unleashed was held as a sacrificial lamb to be used to try and introduce multiple different arcs at once, and eh. Eeeeeh. It's not the comic's brightest moment. At all. Even ignoring Worlds Unite.

[Kuzu]

Really, this isn't the first time this has happened either. Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 suffered similarly bad adaptations due to the comic's format and genre. 

The games and comics are such different mediums, its extremely difficult to marry them both and have a product that's still coherent while still being recognizable to the original. The video game series and comic series  are really just too fucking different. 

[AngelSlayerN64]

I honestly couldn't care less about how this whole adaptation is going. Having something is better than nothing. As long as we're getting comics every now and then, that's all that really matters to me in the end. I'm hyped for "Panic in the Sky" and "Shattered". I'm also intrigued by the Lost World adaptation. There's really no reason for me to dislike this adaptation at all. The Post-Reboot in general makes it all the more enjoyable anyway.

[Mauro Fonseca]

6 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Really, this isn't the first time this has happened either. Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 suffered similarly bad adaptations due to the comic's format and genre. 

The games and comics are such different mediums, its extremely difficult to marry them both and have a product that's still coherent while still being recognizable to the original. The video game series and comic series  are really just too fucking different. 

I'd argue this is a more glaring example, though. Difference being Adventure, etc. were already ensemble cast plots, so adding more characters doing more things, while misguided, doesn't stick out as much as this case. I bring up Cloverfield again. Adventure etc. would be adding more characters to the Avengers movies- risk overbloating, but the setup's already made for multiple characters. Unleashed is Cloverfield having had 10 more characters added in, someone know about the lice monsters too early, and the focus constantly changed away from its central emotional plot idea of "people surviving monster attack develop deep connections but also all die", because someone decided to do a Godzilla adaptation halfway, then editorial demanded a crossover with All in the Family, MacGyver, and Lost.

 

I'd also add that going with the "games and comics are such different mediums" answer is a cop out. There's nothing to comics that says "you can't do a world travel story where a character teaches the world to another". If anything, it might be an even better medium to do that story in. It's all down to how little the comic is willing to experiment in format, to be honest and in my opinion. Which will forever, also in my opinion, be the thing holding it back the most.

 

And if they really ARE both too different AND impossible to have the comic compromise, then easy solution- don't try at all. Again, there were world arcs before without the need of a game adaptation as an excuse.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, The KKM said:

I'd argue this is a more glaring example, though. Difference being Adventure, etc. were already ensemble cast plots, so adding more characters doing more things, while misguided, doesn't stick out as much as this case. I bring up Cloverfield again. Adventure etc. would be adding more characters to the Avengers movies- risk overbloating, but the setup's already made for multiple characters. Unleashed is Cloverfield having had 10 more characters added in, someone know about the lice monsters too early, and the focus constantly changed away from its central emotional plot idea of "people surviving monster attack develop deep connections but also all die", because someone decided to do a Godzilla adaptation halfway, then editorial demanded a crossover with All in the Family, MacGyver, and Lost.

 

I'd also add that going with the "games and comics are such different mediums" answer is a cop out. There's nothing to comics that says "you can't do a world travel story where a character teaches the world to another". If anything, it might be an even better medium to do that story in. It's all down to how little the comic is willing to experiment in format, to be honest and in my opinion. Which will forever, also in my opinion, be the thing holding it back the most.

 

And if they really ARE both too different AND impossible to have the comic compromise, then easy solution- don't try at all. Again, there were world arcs before without the need of a game adaptation as an excuse.

 

When I say they're "different" I meant in the sense of what they're both trying to do; the comics, like you said, are an action-superhero story about the heroes solving problems and saving the day, etc etc. Unleashed isn't really about that, changing one to accommodate the other changes both pretty fundamentally.

Like, if this arc actually did go with your suggestion and demote most of the extra cast barring Sonic & Chip and developed Unleashed's story proper, you step on the toes on comic's format. 

I never said its impossible, but one can't really exist without the other suffering some great loss in some way, in this case its, Unleashed's thematic message about bonding and finding who you are or the comics's general action orientated focus. 

 

 

[Mauro Fonseca]

I think changing the comic to have fit Unleashed would've made the comic stronger tbh in the sense I feel the insistence in having it be a superhero action comic damages it and stiffens it, but again, if no-one's willing to take that step, then as I've said- don't try at all. Hell, you could've easily even did mostly the same arc, but position it as a SEQUEL to Unleashed instead of an ADAPTATION - like the Total Eclipse story! If for some bizarre reason you really must have the "Earth's been shattered just like Unleashed" excuse for a world arc.