Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Your Vest Friend]

Noticed a tiny, tiny little thing I thought would be maybe interesting to point out if you're super-obsessed in the way I am.

 

Actually, I'm here because Ian was on 4chan last night. Doing recon at 1-2am is not fun let me tell you. But anyway, let me feed back some of the more interesting points;

-The two rabbits seen conspiring with a human in the pre-reboot Sonic Timeline were indeed supposed to be Bunnie's parents. 

-He verified that absolutely nothing pre-reboot happened in the new continuity. 

-We'll get smaller stories as we get closer to StH#300.

-Ian gave these hints for what to expect out of the big milestones for Sonic and Universe;

"Sonic - Go big or go home"

"Universe - Unconventional, closure"

-Don't expect any other "new" characters from other continuities (SatAM, AoStH) to be introduced for the foreseeable future 

-There may be an Antoine and Bunnie arc somewhere in the pipeline.

-It seems Blaze will turn up again soon. 

-Wally will continue to suffer.

-As will Clove and Cassia.

-He'll probably bring in zones from other games, and Mania. 

-A Lost World adaptation is not on the horizon. He's not sure how much time he'd get to devote to it or how much liberty he'd be given, so he's thinking of saying it's already happened and then focusing on developing the Deadly Six, but that doesn't rule out him deciding to do a straight adaptation instead.

-He's down with the game idea of Sonic being a free spirit and just a cool bro to everyone, in terms of relationships. 

-He's going to address how Sonic, Tails and Amy came to be with the Freedom Fighters in an upcoming issue.

-If there's been a note to play the game in the comic, then the game happened in the comic continuity in the same way, without the FFs being involved. As such, they weren't participants in all the classic era adventures. 

-He may still someday elaborate on the events of the other games. Emphasis on may. 

-There may be something about Antoine trying to teach Sally how to cook.

-No immediate plans for an Amy, Cream and Blaze arc again, but there's hints that there may be something in the very long term.

-We may see Amy team up with another female character (that isn't Cream) in a future story.

-He could totally consider killing off a post-reboot (non-game) FF if it served a good purpose, but right now he's just established them so no chance of that in the near future.

-Ian still calls the people "Mobians", but he doubts that there will ever be an official term and he doubts he can sneak that term into the book, so he just regards it as the universal fanon term. 

-Nicole's had a lot of focus lately so she'll be put on the back burner a bit, but she will get some closure pretty soon.

-He finds Bean one of the hardest to write for due to the difficulty of writing comedy.

-He has thought about where SegaSonic the Hedgehog fits into comic continuity.

-If it gets approved, Gemerl will finally get a major victory. And it'll be on about the level of "Got your limit right here" and "It's time for school".

-He wants to get through Mega Drive and some other things before thinking about how to branch out into other parts of the classic era.

Remember, all you saw was me talking about the pattern on the teacups in Sonic Universe #90.

[DabigRG]

Quote

 

  Hide contents

Actually, I'm here because Ian was on 4chan last night. Doing recon at 1-2am is not fun let me tell you. But anyway, let me feed back some of the more interesting points;

1. -The two rabbits seen conspiring with a human in the pre-reboot Sonic Timeline were indeed supposed to be Bunnie's parents. 
2. -He verified that absolutely nothing pre-reboot happened in the new continuity. 
3. -We'll get smaller stories as we get closer to StH#300.
4. -There may be an Antoine and Bunnie arc somewhere in the pipeline.
5. -It seems Blaze will turn up again soon. 
6. -A Lost World adaptation is not on the horizon. He's not sure how much time he'd get to devote to it or how much liberty he'd be given, so he's thinking of saying it's already happened and then focusing on developing the Deadly Six, but that doesn't rule out him deciding to do a straight adaptation instead.
7. -He's going to address how Sonic, Tails and Amy came to be with the Freedom Fighters in an upcoming issue.
8. -There may be something about Antoine trying to teach Sally how to cook.
9. -No immediate plans for an Amy, Cream and Blaze arc again, but there's hints that there may be something in the very long term.
10. -We may see Amy team up with another female character (that isn't Cream) in a future story.
11. -He could totally consider killing off a post-reboot (non-game) FF if it served a good purpose, but right now he's just established them so no chance of that in the near future.
12. -Ian still calls the people "Mobians", but he doubts that there will ever be an official term and he doubts he can sneak that term into the book, so he just regards it as the universal fanon term. 

 

1. Figures.
2. *cough*BS*cough*.
3. Sounds good.
4. Interesting.
5. Good.
6. Is that developing or "developing?"
7. Interesting.
8. Neat?
9. Ok.
10. Good.
11. Good to know...?
12. Figures.

 

 

 

 

 

[Big Panda]

Thoughts:

-Shorter stories: All I ask is to please please PLEASE drop the two 10-pager stories per issue format.

-No Lost World adaptation just yet: Oh, that's...unexpected. Especially since things for it are already being set up.

-Blaze showing up soon: finally! I hope we'll finally get a better idea of exactly what was going on with the continuity confusion in PPP.

-Mobian official fanon term: doesn't its use in the special features of the WoC graphic novel essentially make it canon? As well as Mobini being used outright during Eggman's Dozen?

[DabigRG]

Okay, so in sheepish reference to something I said I was gonna do that I never got around to doing, I'm going to bring up an old character point: Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.

Using this interview as easy reference, Thrash was introduced in Sonic Universe 11 as a gruff, but decent traveler who was on a quest that may have something to do with his distrust of the echidnas. It was eventually revealed that he was going to become a recurring character to Knuckles, whom he would be at odds with, in spite of his seemingly noble ideals, due to their contrasting motivations.

What were your first impressions of Thrash? Did the reveal of his intentions have a noticeable effect on you? How did you feel about his warped sense of justice? How do you think you would have felt about his intended rivalry to Knuckles? And do you think he would've been able to find some form of vindication for his extreme views?

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Noticed a tiny, tiny little thing I thought would be maybe interesting to point out if you're super-obsessed in the way I am.

  Reveal hidden contents

Actually, I'm here because Ian was on 4chan last night. Doing recon at 1-2am is not fun let me tell you. But anyway, let me feed back some of the more interesting points;

-The two rabbits seen conspiring with a human in the pre-reboot Sonic Timeline were indeed supposed to be Bunnie's parents. 

-He verified that absolutely nothing pre-reboot happened in the new continuity. 

-We'll get smaller stories as we get closer to StH#300.

-Ian gave these hints for what to expect out of the big milestones for Sonic and Universe;

"Sonic - Go big or go home"

"Universe - Unconventional, closure"

-Don't expect any other "new" characters from other continuities (SatAM, AoStH) to be introduced for the foreseeable future 

-There may be an Antoine and Bunnie arc somewhere in the pipeline.

-It seems Blaze will turn up again soon. 

-Wally will continue to suffer.

-As will Clove and Cassia.

-He'll probably bring in zones from other games, and Mania. 

-A Lost World adaptation is not on the horizon. He's not sure how much time he'd get to devote to it or how much liberty he'd be given, so he's thinking of saying it's already happened and then focusing on developing the Deadly Six, but that doesn't rule out him deciding to do a straight adaptation instead.

-He's down with the game idea of Sonic being a free spirit and just a cool bro to everyone, in terms of relationships. 

-He's going to address how Sonic, Tails and Amy came to be with the Freedom Fighters in an upcoming issue.

-If there's been a note to play the game in the comic, then the game happened in the comic continuity in the same way, without the FFs being involved. As such, they weren't participants in all the classic era adventures. 

-He may still someday elaborate on the events of the other games. Emphasis on may. 

-There may be something about Antoine trying to teach Sally how to cook.

-No immediate plans for an Amy, Cream and Blaze arc again, but there's hints that there may be something in the very long term.

-We may see Amy team up with another female character (that isn't Cream) in a future story.

-He could totally consider killing off a post-reboot (non-game) FF if it served a good purpose, but right now he's just established them so no chance of that in the near future.

-Ian still calls the people "Mobians", but he doubts that there will ever be an official term and he doubts he can sneak that term into the book, so he just regards it as the universal fanon term. 

-Nicole's had a lot of focus lately so she'll be put on the back burner a bit, but she will get some closure pretty soon.

-He finds Bean one of the hardest to write for due to the difficulty of writing comedy.

-He has thought about where SegaSonic the Hedgehog fits into comic continuity.

-If it gets approved, Gemerl will finally get a major victory. And it'll be on about the level of "Got your limit right here" and "It's time for school".

-He wants to get through Mega Drive and some other things before thinking about how to branch out into other parts of the classic era.

Remember, all you saw was me talking about the pattern on the teacups in Sonic Universe #90.

I'm sure that this was the real Ian and not some random anon pretending to be him. :V

[Clewis]

4 minutes ago, TimmiT said:

I'm sure that this was the real Ian and not some random anon pretending to be him. :V

It's not like he hasn't posted there several times in past. Plus there's obvious evidence on his Twitter that it was really him.

[Forte-Metallix]

13 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Okay, so in sheepish reference to something I said I was gonna do that I never got around to doing, I'm going to bring up an old character point: Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.

Using this interview as easy reference, Thrash was introduced in Sonic Universe 11 as a gruff, but decent traveler who was on a quest that may have something to do with his distrust of the echidnas. It was eventually revealed that he was going to become a recurring character to Knuckles, whom he would be at odds with, in spite of his seemingly noble ideals, due to their contrasting motivations.

What were your first impressions of Thrash? Did the reveal of his intentions have a noticeable effect on you? How did you feel about his warped sense of justice? How do you think you would have felt about his intended rivalry to Knuckles? And do you think he would've been able to find some form of vindication for his extreme views?

 

I honestly thought he was a really interesting foil to Knuckles: Both are incredibly loyal to their kind, to the point of crossing morally ambiguous lines. (Chaos Knuckles messing with space-time, and Thrash's banishing the Echidnas) I kinda feel bad for Thrash, despite knowing he's clearly in the wrong. And his design and screeching powers were pretty cool, too!

And let's not forget: He's the in-universe reason for all of Knuckles's recolor donut-steel relatives getting booted out of the book for good. And after all the horrible things they did (Refusing to do anything about Robotnik, trying to deny the dingoes their right to exist, using Chaos energy for their own selfish desires, chaining up and throwing a gorilla off the Floating Island to drown just for bullying Knuckles, and raising Guardians in the most neglectful way possible), I'm glad to see them all gone.

I don't exaggerate or joke when I say Thrash was, in a meta sense, the greatest hero of the old continuity. He will be missed ;n;7

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

Okay, so in sheepish reference to something I said I was gonna do that I never got around to doing, I'm going to bring up an old character point: Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.

Using this interview as easy reference, Thrash was introduced in Sonic Universe 11 as a gruff, but decent traveler who was on a quest that may have something to do with his distrust of the echidnas. It was eventually revealed that he was going to become a recurring character to Knuckles, whom he would be at odds with, in spite of his seemingly noble ideals, due to their contrasting motivations.

What were your first impressions of Thrash? Did the reveal of his intentions have a noticeable effect on you? How did you feel about his warped sense of justice? How do you think you would have felt about his intended rivalry to Knuckles? And do you think he would've been able to find some form of vindication for his extreme views?

 

I don't thin hw left much impression on me. Oh look, a big purple Knuckles. Keeps hinting stuff.

My eyes were on FInitevus at the time, maybe slightly on Vector. (still dissapointed that this 'team-up' was so short).

[Big Panda]

2 hours ago, Clewis said:

It's not like he hasn't posted there several times in past. Plus there's obvious evidence on his Twitter that it was really him.

Funny, I just asked him there and his response was "think real hard about your question".

I can only assume what he means is "it's 4chan what the heck do you think?" =p

[Your Vest Friend]

24 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

Funny, I just asked him there and his response was "think real hard about your question".

I can only assume what he means is "it's 4chan what the heck do you think?" =p

 

It's because he can't confirm he was there due to how 4chan is regarded. I'm sure an employer would love showing their writer answering questions on 4chan with the reputation it has.

[Big Panda]

8 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

  Hide contents

It's because he can't confirm he was there due to how 4chan is regarded. I'm sure an employer would love showing their writer answering questions on 4chan with the reputation it has.

I realised that just now and hastily deleted my tweets.

Shit I feel dumb.

[Your Vest Friend]

Just now, Ernest-Panda said:

I realised that just now and hastily deleted my tweets.

Shit I feel dumb.

Ian answered as well. Oh dear.

[Big Panda]

 

I did delete the questions the moment the penny dropped. God he's probably pissed at me *crying*

[Your Vest Friend]

5 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

 

  Hide contents

TBF I did delete the questions the moment the penny dropped. God he's probably pissed at me *crying*

 

 

Eh, we all have these moments, I'm sure he'd understand.

He'd probably be more pissed at the info getting out, but I saw the info spilling out of 4chan and onto Tumblr way before my post, it was just floating sourceless so people were seeing it and being like "Okay so Ian said this but we have no goddamn idea where, when or why".

[Dr. Detective]

So I just got Issue 286 and SU #90.

Panic in the Sky part 3 of 4 is working out better then I thought it would upon initially seeing the finale was only going to be four issues. They definitely cut corners but they weren't as terrible as I thought they'd be. Sonic actually did have a hard time with the Egg Dragoon before he turned into the werehog, which was incredibly satisfying. The Werehog didn't get to have a fight with it though. Instead they jumped immediately to the final QTE so... I suppose that's a decent compromise. It was also great seeing Orbot and Cubot take out the Sky Patrol. I greatly enjoyed that.

Shattered Part 4 of 4 though... I thought the issue was disappointing and the final confrontation with Wally was an impressive piece of shit. Probably the absolute worst 4th issue to a Sonic Universe Arc to date. Maybe. 

The consistent problem with the finale issue to these four issue story arcs hastily wrapping themselves up by dispatching the final problem super quickly has plagued these comics since they began, certainly. However, this was just pathetic. It's not even comical how bad Wally got it here; and after I liked him so much in the other continuity too (which is still amazing considering I didn't like too much about the old continuity).

I mean, the issue starts and he just... loses. I mean, what was even the problem last issue? That he caught them off guard? That's too lame. Come on now. I thought him regaining his powers meant something a little more potent and impressive. Like he'd be flying around and hurling Kamehameha waves everywhere. It was such a more blatantly obvious hassle taking down Omega then it was him. And the issue had plenty of time to make itself work a bit better. The Amy and Knuckles stuff seemed like it was worked in here at the last minute despite being something I'd normally be okay with. I actually thought those scenes were good. If they needed to work that in, they probably could have saved themselves the trouble and gotten rid of some of the more useless pages in the earlier issues for that. Unlike Eggman's Dozen where I was satisfied by the conclusion because I felt like everything that Wally and Wendy were doing was reasonably undone right before the final issue where he wheeled out the very last thing he had to fight back with, this was a powered up presentation immediately followed by an alley way beat down.

Shattered as a whole was... I dunno. Okay I guess. The novalty of seeing Team Dark, Amy, and Knuckles working together wore off at the beginning of the second issue where I was ready to be taken in by the plot. That never really happened.

The transformation into Bootleg Thrash that Wally did ended up coming off as a bit of an excuse for exposition, which I'm cool with, but it didn't lead to anything super interesting besides that. The third issue with the Omega fight was impressive for the simple merit behind having a boss conflict last an entire issue. But then the fourth issue here just... it was like someone pressed fast forward on the DVD player.

"Yeah we gotta wrap this shit up! Just do it all at once. All of it at once. Oh and character development I guess. Sure."

Also, they messed up by showing us a scene of what happened after the world was restored. Unless where I live is just ass backwards and Issue 287 came out before Part 4 of Shattered and I somehow didn't know it yet. Either way, they really shouldn't do that.

[Your Vest Friend]

Something completely inconsequential but still neat; Lovallo drew this when commenting on approving comics early. 

[QuantumEdge]

1 minute ago, VEDJ-F said:

Something completely inconsequential but still neat; Lovallo drew this when commenting on approving comics early. 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I really want Vin to do pencils for an issue one day.  His style fits Sega's down to a T and considering his recent off-panel and cover contributions, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility.

[Your Vest Friend]

Aw gee, just had a brainwave that made me realise that saying that Unleashed was pulled from the future is actually incompatible if Generations happened exactly as presented in the game. Also why Sonic '06 makes sense to be pulled from, why Vector was in Rooftop Run and why the Egg Emperor was considered as a modern boss at all in the 3DS version.

My brainwaves are pretty tangential. 

[Big Panda]

I prefer to imagine what he meant was "everything you saw in the game happened, as well as a bunch of other minor things you didn't see". A minor off-screen conversation about how some of these locales don't entirely match up with Sonic's timeline (if we're throwing Crisis City in there too) could easily be one of those things.

[Your Vest Friend]

That wouldn't really tackle it though.

See, as Ian has established multiple times, he's explained that he's taking Sonic Unleashed's Rooftop Run as being pulled from the future in the comic. However, a single line completely throws that idea out the window from the perspective of Sonic Generations as presented. Eggman explains how he came across the Time Eater and discovered its incredible power. He then explains what he's using it for in his evil scheme; 

"I then had the brilliant idea to use my discovery to undo my previous defeats!"

...You can see the big issue, right? In the comic, the events of Unleashed are in the future, so Eggman shouldn't have gotten it as he was only focused on defeats that had happened in the past.

As for the other less big points;

-Crisis City, despite physically being 200 years in the future, would still very much be an event in the past from the perspective of Eggman and Sonic's timelines. So for the Time Eater, Sonic '06 is likely a tiny loop in the line and the reset means that the timeline continues off at a slight tangent to the original. 

-From this perspective, the actual continuous timeline would go Sonic Heroes - Sonic Unleashed - Planet Wisp. So from that end, having the Chaotix occupy that makes sense, even if they don't have an association with Rooftop Run per se, As for the individual placements, Vector's rescue dialogue was considered plot-essential so they were probably trying to space it evenly between the Seaside Hill revelation and the Eggman confrontation, I guess they thought of using Speed Highway for Espio's vs mission and really liked it (and with Vector out of contention, is also more suiting for Heroes), and they're fully aware of Charmy's reputation so thought people would want to rescue him the least (seriously, even the rescue theme is truncated for him). 

-As a result of the above chain between Heroes and Colours, Heroes would have as much in common with the modern era as the millennial era, so is more versatile in placement. Thus, when thinking of bosses for the modern era in Generations 3DS, Heroes would be perfectly viable for consideration, which then led to the Egg Emperor being used.

[Forte-Metallix]

Well, considering Eggman was gleefully abusing all of time and space, and all the bizarre consequences that follow every time someone does that in this universe, I think pulling in locations and fights from the future and characters ending up in places they've never been before aren't that hard to believe.

My only two questions regarding Archie!Generations are:

1) Does Sonic not remember it? That would explain why he didn't have a sense of deja vu when fighting the Egg Dragoon in Panic in the Sky.

and 2) What happened to Classic Robotnik after the Time Eater's destruction? Was he stuck in White Space with his modern self like in the games, or did he just get sent back to his own time like everyone else?

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Breaking the hiatus, again but the Sonic wiki may have leaked three pages from STH 287. And Skelly's not pencilling it, neither is ABT.

It's Tracy Yardley!

I even checked Google books to see if they accidently had some pages, but I don't see anything... o_o

[Your Vest Friend]

Odd that Skelley was completely taken off the arc when she was supposed to be penciling this one too. 

[Big Panda]

Those pages are on the Archie App.

[QuantumEdge]

6 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Odd that Skelley was completely taken off the arc when she was supposed to be penciling this one too. 

Well apparently there are rumours she was struggling with deadlines, which may very well be true, given the fact she needed a bit of help near the end of Champions.  It's a shame, but on the bright side, it does feel good, almost fitting, to have Yardley finish off this saga.