Sonic Saga Series

Main Info

The Sonic Saga Series started September 2012, beginning with Ian Flynn's run on the comic, albeit skipping his first introductory arc (Birthday Bash), and beginning on his first major arc - Darkest Storm. Despite it's intention to be the modern version of Archives, unlike the Archives series, which focused on recollecting every issue in order, and in complete condition, the Saga Series would focus on collecting story arcs, skipping over certain stories, and in some volumes - including either the first part of a arc in a earlier volume, or leaving the final part of certain arcs out to include in the next volume. 

Also unlike the Archives series, the covers would simply reuse a cover image from the original arc, rather than create original artwork, such as with Sonic Selects, Archives, or Legacy. 

Despite this however, Saga Series would remain the only real method of collecting Ian Flynn's pre-continuity reboot run on the main series in graphic novel form, as Archives only barely managed to get to Issue 90 before it's similar cancellation, and Universe - while tying into the main comic at points - largely stuck to it's own stories.

Saga Series for the most part would stick to issues post #161, with the occasional bonus story from earlier issues, if it happened to tie into the main arc of the book (IE - A story from #129 that introduced Tails' parents in this continuity was placed within Volume 4, as the main arc of that book was focused on them). 

As such, it remains the only other graphic novel series before the continuity shift that occurred in Issue #252 that tackled collecting the main Archie Sonic the Hedgehog series, and it managed to roughly collect around 30 issues before it's cancellation (#162-#194). 

Release Dates:

• Volume 1: Darkest Storm - September 2012
• Volume 2: Order from Chaos - April 2013
• Volume 3: Eggman Empire - July 2013
• Volume 4: House of Cards - September 2013
• Volume 5: Evil Reborn - July 2014
• Volume 6: Mogul Rising - October 2014
• Volume 7: The Dark Mirror - March 2015
• Volume 8: Hedgehog Havoc! - Slated but Cancelled
• Volume 9: The Eggman War - Slated but Cancelled
• Volume 10: On the Run! - Slated but Cancelled

Issues Reprinted: 

• Volume 1: Darkest Storm - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog Issues #162-167
• Volume 2: Order from Chaos - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog Issues #168-172
• Volume 3: Eggman Empire - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog Issues #173-#176 + Sonic Rush from #160-161 (Missing last part of Eggman Empire)
• Volume 4: House of Cards - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #177-180 + Welcome to Wheelworld from #129 (Contains final part of Eggman Empire + Enerjak Reborn Prologue) 
• Volume 5: Evil Reborn - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #181-184 
• Volume 6: Mogul Rising - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #185-189 (Contains first part of A Bold New Moebius) 
• Volume 7: The Dark Mirror - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #190-193
• Volume 8: Hedgehog Havoc! - (Presumably) Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #194-198 (Contains first part of The Eggman Wars) (Cancelled but slated)
• Volume 9: The Eggman War - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #199-202 (Cancelled but Slated)
• Volume 10: On the Run! - Stories from Sonic the Hedgehog #203-206 (Cancelled but Slated)

Cancellation: 

While the series would continue on into 2015 at least, a series of delays hit both it, and multiple other Archie Graphic Novel series, on both the Sonic and Mega Man sides until it's eventual death and cancellation in 2017 when Archie finally lost the publishing license to Sonic the Hedgehog.

As a result, it's unlikely the rest of the Saga Series, much like the rest of Archie Sonic will ever see new reprints, or additional work collected again. It was also uncertain how things would go when Archives eventually caught up to Saga Series, if it would reprint it's contents in a much more complete form, with no stories omitted, or if they'd just stop Archives by the time it got to Saga Series' contents.

Either way, with IDW now owning the publishing rights, the fact stories/characters are now apparently owned by their individual writers, and no hints of IDW pursuing reprints, it was the end of Sonic Saga Series.

Edits, Corrections, and Other Trivia

While the initial four volumes of Saga Series managed to release with little to no problems, Volume 5 ran into a stumbling block due to the arc in question concerning Enerjak - one of Ken Penders' creations - who would effectively possess and corrupt Knuckles throughout the arc. While never confirmed to be the definitive reason for the delay and editing of the book's title, the likely reason for the edit and delay is due to the then legal suit that was ongoing between Archie Comics and Ken Penders.

As a result, this would cause the first major edit of the series, in which the book - which original covers and solicitation named it as 'Enerjak Reborn' would be edited to the new, more vague titling of 'Evil Reborn'.  

Following Evil Reborn, Volume 6 would remain relatively in-tact, with only a few minor corrections made to bring minor design details in line with later depictions.

Volume 7 on the other hand - featured changes to the arc's title (From Bold New Moebius to The Dark Mirror), the most likely answer to this edit is due to the mandate that Mobius is dropped as the name of Sonic's world, to which the name Moebius was taken from. As a result, the book was named The Dark Mirror in order to remove Moebius from it. 

Volume 8's contents are a guess at best, based off the contents of Volume 7, and Volume 9's solicitation, this being due to the fact the solicitation - while using Issue #195's cover - incorrectly claimed it was reprinting Volume 7's issues once again. If the guess is correct, this book would have taken the first part of The Eggman War's arc - Egg Phoenix Down. 

Volume 9's title - The Eggman War - is a original title, much like Evil Reborn, and The Dark Mirror, although unlike those two, the most likely answer as to why this is the case is likely because the main arc it concerns (Issues 198-200) simply had individual story names for it's stories, and never gave it a proper arc name.