#Archie Sonic Ongoing

[sonicpanels]

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Ongoing) #4: "Tails' Little Tale"

Writer(/possible uncredited layouts): Michael Gallagher Pencils: Dave Manak Inks: Henry Scarpelli Letters: Bill Yoshida Colors: Barry Grossman

Editor: Victor Gorelick

[sonknuxadow]

is it like a law of the universe that every sonic comic series has to have a pair of besties who are actually semi canonically gay . i just realized that this has happened 3 times once for each comic

[thankskenpenders]

Part1: Thank you for the reply! Sorry if I keep pushing the subject, but what I don't understand is Penders' disdain/hate for Chronicles. For someone who always boasts about his contributions to the Sonic IP, one would have thought he would have been elated to be the inspiration and starting point for what would become a plot and setting of the IP's core media, games. Plus, you said it yourself, to everyone's knowledge (Even Penders, maybe?) they were seen as fair game at the time of production.

Part2: I would understand if he was asking for acknowledgement/compensation, but his ownership claims seems to be made out of malicious spite, rather than a proper sense of injustice. Like if DC would have dressed Superman in a red & white costume for a few issues after the Fawcett case (I know it's not exactly the same legal case). But why do you think he acts like that? I would love to read your thoughts as you are one of the few capable of reaching unbiased conclusions when it comes to him.

So the thing with the Sonic Chronicles case is that by that point Ken had discovered Archie had lost his contract, cooked up the story that it never existed, and started filing for copyrights for his work. As such, he argued that Sonic Chronicles taking inspiration from his work was an instance of copyright infringement. In his eyes, Shade literally is Julie-Su, and the Nocturnus Clan literally is the Dark Legion, just with the names changed, and if he never signed a contract then that stuff wasn't fair game for other Sega projects to touch. To him, it wasn't uncredited inspiration, it was theft.

The case was dismissed in court because the Archie v. Penders case to determine who actually owned the copyrights for his work was still ongoing, and then by the time that was settled the statute of limitations for the Chronicles case had passed. (In basic terms: it had been too long since Sonic Chronicles came out to sue over it.) So it ended in a stalemate, with both sides still arguing ownership, and Ken would only be able to revive the lawsuit if Sega did something new with Sonic Chronicles or those characters - a sequel, a port of the game, Shade appearing in new stories, etc.

Since then, it's basically turned into a game of chicken with the copyrights. Ken believes Sega has just washed their hands of Chronicles because they don't want to deal with the legal trouble, which is honestly probably true. Meanwhile, Ken has been testing how far he can push his claims of ownership over Shade before Sega does anything, such as when he announced that Shade NFT that declared she was literally the same character as Julie-Su. (Or at least it would have if he'd ever released it.) If Sega doesn't do anything about it, then they're at risk of forfeiting the copyrights, which Ken will take as a sign that they've fully abandoned Sonic Chronicles as their property and therefore he can do whatever he wants with its elements.

So, basically, yeah, he's still just bitter and spiteful over the plot of Sonic Chronicles being based loosely on his Knuckles comics without his involvement. And to a certain extent I'd get that. Comic artists and writers are paid in table scraps and get no benefits, then they see the companies who own their work turn it into billion dollar movies and video games and mountains of merch, and they don't see a penny of those profits. They don't even tend to earn royalties off of their comics' sales. It's unfair. But while I think he deserved some form of credit and maybe some form of compensation, there's a difference between adaptation and inspiration, and Ken's just being a copyright troll here.

There's immense irony in Ken believing that Bioware's homage to Julie-Su should be seen as the same character as Julie-Su in the eyes of the law, while he's out here publishing a comic featuring K'Nox, The Legally Distinct Character Who Is Totally Not Knuckles. Also, like, one of his pet characters has always been a blatant homage to James Bond. He was out there basing Archie Sonic stories on Star Trek episodes and Superman comics and shit. My favorite Sonic story of his literally just ripped off the plot of "For the Man Who Has Everything." I don't see him out here cutting Alan Moore a check. He's nothing if not a hypocrite.

[egg-emperor]

Does Eggman actually have dark red eyes? I wanted to hear your take on that!

Nah that was just an ongoing thing in non canon media. Likely due to how the US box art Eggman for classic games looked like he had black voids for eyes, then 90s shows seemed to take inspiration but gave him red irises, which the Archie comics then adopted- well pre reboot, as he was later depicted with white sclera there even.

In the games he's always had regular white sclera instead. Even before we knew his actual iris color, he was consistenly depicted with white sclera long before and it was always Sega/Sonic Team Japan's vision. Here I'll compile some times they've appeared in the actual games

This was an unused animation for the Egg Poison boss but it's still a sprite made for a game that depicts what they envisioned his eyes to be:

They should've kept it because it was very cute and funny, spilling Mega Mack over himself XD

But with that, it dates his white sclera all the way back to Sonic 2, despite what Western classic box art and shows depicted at the time

The Sonic Advance games and Sonic Battle have his eyes very comically pop out when he takes damage:

He's literally one of these keychains where you squeeze them and the eyes pop out, they need to make an official Advance/Battle Eggman keychain like this lol

The 2D animations like Sonic Mania Adventures are considerably canon as they take place after the game's events and are in an actual game now through Sonic Origins' museum. You can see them there too:

You can also see them again in the character sheet art that was also used as reference for the Origins 2D animation:

Trio of Trouble, which also should be canon as a prequel and promo for Sonic Superstars, also shows his eyes briefly:

The only time he's been shown with an iris color in a game is Sonic 06, where we finally see that they're blue

While 06's events were erased from the timeline, Eggman's eye color obviously wouldn't have just randomly changed just for these events and then been some other color after, so this solidly confirms what color his irises are

I really love the light gray-blue shade they went with specifically, suits him best for it makes them look cold and intense which I think works as a much better way to give him a sinister look than much more cliche red and black eyes

And a bonus which perhaps might not be the case but that one CD sprite has always appeared to give a peek at the whites of his eyes behind his glasses to me at least too:

There are also non canon depictions with white sclera as much as there are of him with red and black but I wanted to compile the appearances within actual games and tie-ins specifically. And as you can see, he has white sclera in all of them and blue irises in 06

Red and black is purely non canon. A lot of people have theories about his eyes changing or looking different because of non canon media but if he took his glasses off in a 3D modern game, he'd absolutely just have blue eyes and white sclera

I really hope they do at some point because they'd be fun to see on his regular model outside of 06 and would look very pretty hehe 🩵 I love to imagine them all the time and I'm very happy that they're the canon look because they're the best!

[archiesonicforever]

Archie Sonic Forever cover

Here's the cover for Archie Sonic Forever #0. This special prologue chapter releases on our website, May 6th.

This issue picks up right before the cliffhanger ending of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog #241, and begins a new course for the ongoing Mecha Sally saga.

When it drops, you can read for free at https://archiesonicforever.com

[julie-sufan]

The In-Depth Look at Julie-Su Part 9: Sonic the Hedgehog Issues 80, 81, 82, 84 and Sonic Super Special #14

After the Knuckles comic ended, he and the other side characters from his series were regulated to short backups in the Archie ongoing Sonic comic. Unfortunately this lead to a drop in quality as the stories went from 22 pages to around 5-7 each month. Which made the overall storylines progress much slower then before.

Since the Chaotix would not get reintroduced in the game's series canon until after the Dreamcast era (And Julie-Su only existing in the comic.) They're on their own for a while as Knuckles is in his own story based off of his path from Sonic Adventure 1.

They get kidnapped by some cat people who were made for the comic and are not part of Sonic Adventure's game storyline.

Locke shows up so the story can focus on some echidna lore which includes Pachacamac from the ancient echidna tribe from SA1.

Sometime after that (Off panel I assume) the Chaotix are freed and are reunited with Knuckles following the SA related events from issue #84.

With the game canon story over Penders is now set to resume his lingering plot threads from the Knuckles comic in Sonic Super Special #14 which for the most part feels like the actual ending the ongoing series should have gotten.

The story starts off with Knuckles and Julie-Su together at Knux's Mom wedding to her boyfriend Wynmacher.

It's kinda odd that no one got dressed up for the wedding.

The Chaotix all ride on those evil looking horses to search a abandoned Dark Legion complex.

Enjoy seeing the Chaotix while you can because they won't be in the story much longer.

I've always hated how easily she gets kidnapped in this part. I would think why didn't she bring her gun but then again they did just get back from a wedding.

I'm so glad Lien-Da did not stick to wearing yellow. It makes her look way too similar to Lara-Le. Note I believe this is the first time that Julie-Su interacts with Lien-Da face to face.

Throw in the garbage and discarded that's a apt metaphor for her role in this story and for upcoming issues. Spoiler coming up is the Green Knuckles saga (Sonic 92-118) and it is truly the epitome of meandering.

[samobservessonic]

The main story of this big issue is the second part of Countdown to Disaster, brought to us by the usual Kitching & Elson dream team. To be fair on Knuckles, this would also be my first question if I saw a robot duplicate of some guy I knew

Sonic has no idea how a robot he previously trashed is back, but I’m more concerned with the swing and miss he’s had with giving Knuckles a nickname here. But don’t worry, Sonic will indeed keep calling Knuckles “Red” from now on

It’s a coincidence that I’m blogging about this one the day after the trailer for the third Sonic movie has come out, but damn - Knuckles is having a bad time being beaten down by Sonic doppelgangers lately!

Oh, that was your brother! The family resemblance is striking!

I thought it was probably a good idea to include the first mention of the Brotherhood of Metallix, because that’s certainly going to be a big plot point that I know a fair few people cite as their favourite part of StC (I don’t have the sources, but current writer of the games, Ian Flynn, has mentioned a few times on his podcast, the Bumblekast, that it’s his favourite part of StC)

We get a fight scene between Sonic and Metallix, before Sonic figures out that he can get a boost from the Master Emerald as well. But this is StC, so you know what that means…

…It’ Super Sonic time! And with him comes an instant KO!

We cut back to our two villains, with Grimer managing to effortlessly deflect a Robotnik tantrum by pointing out that, even if Metallix lost, they still got the Master Emerald out of it

This continues to be a bad day for Knuckles meeting new(ish) hedgehogs who want to beat him up

That’s pretty embarrassing to come around and realise that your alter ego was punching your crush who already isn’t that into you

But Knuckles brushes off this explanation, because the two of them falling to their death takes priority right now. Not only that, but I’m sure we’ve all got a pretty good idea what that ominous something that’s about to break through the clouds is

…This story was epic! Even if it’s the second part of an ongoing story and may or may not have intentionally been put here for the 50th issue, it feels very worthy of it. We’ve got an iconic moment from the game being illustrated and adapted beautifully, featuring some big fights between hard-hitters from the games themselves. Fleetway Super Sonic was even there! These are the kind of stakes I want to see in a big milestone issue. I feel like StC’s 50th issue isn’t talked about nearly as much as Archie’s End Game is, but I’d definitely recommend it for this story alone. It truly feels like a love letter to the Sonic series at the time!

[popculturebuffet]

Sonic The Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island Review (Patreon Review/Comission for Brotoman.EXE)

Happy halloween all you happy badniks! It's almost halloween and while that means spooky season comes to it's sad end soon it also means there's still time for a few tricks and treats. Today we've got both as we look at the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog series Scrapnik Island.

Before I can get into what this series is a brief history of IDW Sonic as this is my first time covering the Blue Blur's IDW adventures and some of you may be coming in from the games or only passingly familiar with the comics.

IDW picked up the license after Archie callously threw it into a ravine after breaking it's back, due to a combination of the reboot NOT quite getting numbers and Archie's restructruing. While I love Archie Comics i'm still livid with how they treated one of their longest running titles. And Ken Penders for making things bad in the first place but not everything with Archie Sonic is Ken Penders fault. More about.. half.

IDW and Archie Vetran and Sonic Expert and super fan Ian Flynn faced an uphill battle with tons of dumb regulations from no romantic relationships to "Shadow's vegeta now we guess" to one relevant to this comic: The Classic and Modern continuities were sepreate realities. Now if you ask questions like "Wait then how did sonic meet knuckles?" , "Isn't sonic generations about time travel?", "Why would you do this?", "Who asked for this?" or "Seriously SEGA get your finger out of your ass" you put more thought into this than SEGA did, and I still hate the draconian regulations they've put on the comic.

Despite these the comic was a massive success, still runs today, and rather than do a full on ongoing with rotating plots like Archie, IDW instead does mini series. Granted i'd prefer a succesor to sonic universe, but publishing times change and the minis mean they don't HAVE to do another story and leaves room for things like the various holiday specials, anniversary specials or to do a classic era mini starring Fang the Hunter... will NEVER be used to that name but it's awesome he got a spotlight after all this time.

These two things intersect here: Scrapnik Island is one of these minis and tells a contained story that so far hasn't been picked up by current writer Evan Stanley but hopefully will one of these days as the characters it introduces are great.

The big thing though is that Scrapnik was the first IDW comic to get to refrence events from teh classic games. The Scrapniks, who you'll meet soon enough, are all classic era badniks, and one of the main characters is Mecha Sonic from Sonic 3 and Knuckles, while it's implied the Death Egg from that pair of games is the one used in this comic. They don't refrence a ton outright, probably still on a tightrope, but it's clear by now Sega's walked back the alternate dimension thing for Classic Sonic. They still seem to keep the two time periods seperate, with Fang probably still confined to classic model stories sadly, as I'd love to see him and the other hooligans interact with Tangle, but it's more resonable than "Their not the same sonic because shut up" so i'll take it. It allows sonic's whole history in the games to be accessed both on page and screen, and means the scrapniks could even show up in the games one day. I have doubts but i'd love that. It's a milestone in the sonic comics and a great story on it's own merit

So who are the scrapniks? What pieces of the past will haunt Sonic on a dark and stormy night? and will this involve a weird brain machine Robotnik just had? All this and more can be found under the cut if you dare

Scrapnik Island comes to us from Writer Daniel Barnes, who published the graphic novel black mage, and did a spec pitch bible for a sonic animated series, which likely caught IDW's attention. Especially since Ian Flynn, Sonic's Real Dad, got started with a fan comic before saving the archie unverse, creatd a new archie universe, creating a new universe fit inside the games universe, and now writing the games themselves. While Barnes hasn't blown up that much, it's clear form his writing the man loves sonic deeply and snuck in a few easter eggs.

Artist Jack Lawrence is a vet at IDW, having drawn more than meet's the eye's final act, Lost LIght, something I hadn't realized but means we'll be seeing him again in a few years. He's also drawn Transformers/MLP, a wreckers mini for the second idw continuity, and a few issues of sonic including a previous Mini, Bad Guys. Also he drew some Jackie Chan Adventures comics, something i'm somehow JUST NOW finding out exists.

Both do a top notch job here, with Lawrence in paticular matching the horror vibe of the first issue and certain other parts of the comic very well while keeping it sonic.

So kicking off the comic proper..

And Sonic and Tails are rolling around at the speed of sound, got places to go gotta follow their rainbow. It's a simple setup that works: the guys are just on their plane when adventure happens. Pretty standard sonic setup and one that allows the series to be as standalone as it is: Unlike the previous two, which gave everyones faviorite couple the spotlight and focused on the big bad of the series forming his own suicide squad, respectively, this is just a fun side adventure. It's one I WISH would come back as it introduced an intresting concept in the scrapniks, and it'd be neat to see how other characters react to them, paticuarlly Belle. Belle is a puppet like robot made of wood that Dr Eggman built while he had amnesia and became a kindhearted toymaker before his obessive fanboy kidnapped him to snap him back to his awful usual self, then realized he made a huge mistake. It's a long story I may get into one of these days. But given the cast here are reformed badniks, more ont hat in a bit, it'd be intresting for Belle to meet other eggman creations who aren't evil.

At any rate our heroes soon crash into the death egg, what's strongly implied to be the FIRST death egg from sonic 2 through knuckles. Which is neat to see. One dramatic crash later and Sonic wakes up alone, in a creepy unlit hallway on a table with Tails missing and surrounded by badnik corpses.

He also finds a weird metal club on his foot and can't move it without pain.. which I like as a tension device. It's hard to have a horror premise when your hero has super speed and has kicked ass since he was 12, so this helps level things. Sonic faces things brave as he can, noting how much the Death Egg has degraded. Which at first I thought wa sweird considering this was the first model but I mean.. how many could eggman have built?

The answer.. is 5 total. 6 if you count sonic drift. There was the original, the death egg II from sonic the fighters, the death egg from sonic battle he somehow had, the death egg mk 2 from sonic 4 which I know I know but it sadly is still canon, and the death egg from sonic forces that makes the most sense out of any of these for him to pull out of his ass as he at least had an illusion magic thingy. So the bigger question is why isn't mobius littered with these. And yup still calling it mobius. If Sega wants me to not call it that, then come up with a better name than "Sonic's World".

I love the atmosphere here thougH: Sonic's forced to slow it down so we get him wandinerg around, finding a single flower. This is one of the ones from sonic CD it seems. Why it's here... is easily handwaved: this island seems to be a dumping ground for all of Eggman's old inventions, and thus him leaving this here makes sense. It's also canon for IDW/Games eggman to move from projects way too fast. Can relate.

Eventually sonic finds a bunch of badniks... who are a bit.. diffrent than normal

I love the designs here and recognize some of these, the bulk coming from sonic 2: we've got that octopus from oil ocean, a buzz bomber with one eye from a crab meat and a claw from one, one of those mole things from sonci 3, the dragon fly from sonic and knuckles also given crameat claws, and one of the stinger enemies from sonci 21 grafted to that fucking spider asshole from checmial plant zone. And leading them all.. is Mecha Sonic, a neat return after far too long. I'm baffled why sega defaults to metal sonci more, as I love mecah sonic's bigger design, cool visor and use of the master emerald in his boss fight with knuckles.

He gives chase and Sonic super fucking runs away, not helped by his leg. While the sequence is tense we do get a really great joke as Sonic hides in one of the capusles from sonic 1

It's a nice tense sequence.. and hilarous once you know these guys.. aren't trying to harm him. In fact they were helping and their leader apologizes for spooking him. Their leader is E-117 Sigma, one of the e-series robots and apparently either made after gamma or somehow missing out on adventure and thus getting to live. Either way he's the only one that can speak and helps bring Sonic up to speed: He's sorry abotu spooking them and also sorry about the crash and offers to help repair the plane while they wait. Turns out the weather disruptor, because of course Eggman had a weather machine on his doomsday device, on the death egg is glitching. While tails geeks out sonic TRIES to apologize to mecha.. who brushes him off and struggles with their body. And I like the tonal contrast... the island itself.. is warm, full of rusted tech but safe and welcmoing.. yet still contrasted with a danger lurking on the death egg: mecha knuckles.

Specifically, and this is a deep cut I love, this is the Mecha Knuckles from sonic advance.. possibly the same one from Sonic R too bu the has the eyes of the advance one. Mecha Knuckles was my faviorit eboss fight of the game, starting as an off color knuckles before his skin exploded revealing a silver knuckles who had missles. He wasn't super hard but he's so far one of the best attempts at making a boss the same size as sonic ans friends. He's also wearing Knuckles hat from the OVA which i'm pleased is making a comeback: first this then the Knuckles mini series. Knuckles in a hat is dope and i'm glad it's getting more traction.

So issue 2. We begin with a flashback to Sigma and the Scrapnik's as a whole's origin story: he woke up on the shores of scrapnik island and is shown slowly repairing the bots best he can, hence their whole sid from toy store deal minus the need for therapy from their creator. It's a heartwarming sequence I wish I could show in full

You see the pure joy sigma has for his "creations", how much he cares.. and see Mecha wash up.

In present day Sonic's taking a nap when he wakes up to the scrapniks.. talking. Turns out Tails can translates though it's mostly "HELLO"... and is at least adorable. Sigma has good news and bad news. Good news they can mostly fix the plane bad news.. i'ts power source is cracked, and isn't easy to replace. Sigma thinks the death egg might ahve one and SOnic being sonic agrees to go get it, with Sigma and Mecha accompanying him.

The trip mostly goes well with it being revealed what the egg carrier is for: To get them off the island. The Egg Carrier comes from sonic adventure, being one of the games main settings and eggman's lair, and having sunk by the end of it, last seen being the spot for Amy's final boss fight with Zero shortly after Gamma's final battle. It's a smart pull as it makes sense it washed up here: it was in the ocean last we saw it and likely drifted to the island same as a lot of Eggman's creations. They plan to use it to leave someday, though it still needs work.

WE also get ane xplination for the sunflower: it washed up here and Mecha is carring for it, planning on taking it with them when they go. Sonic tries to offer his new friend a hand, bigones be bigones.. but while Mecha TRIES to accept it... they get attacked. Mecha Knuckles has made his move

We get some good action, solid stuff though I wish this four parter leaned more into the horror. Once we find out the scrapniks are goodniks... it's mostly a standard sonic story with a tinge of horror elements. It's a GOOD sonic story and the horror dosen't ever fully leave, but The MEtal Virus saga proved sonic can pull off horror well so I wish they'd went all in. That being said while I do hope for a story that does that, I get not doing it with these characters: they coudl've started with a horror story in mind.. but pivoted as the characters became more sympathetic.

Sigma explains the issue: he did rewawaken knux, who also has stretchy limbs, but eggman's programming was too deep to overwrite like he did for the others. He was designed to guard the master emerald shrine so the best Sig could do is retask him with guarding the death egg... problem is.. he can't convince him Sonic's a friend so a fight breaks out.. and we get the comics best sequence as poor Mecha has flashes of ptsd

It's a great horrifying sequence and not a stretch to see why the very being that destroyed him gives him nightmare or WHY it's been hard being around sonic: Mecha was made to destroy him.. and failed at it.. and Eggman simply.. forgot about him. He brought metal back, perfected him, made him better, something that other writers could explore, but he forgot Mecha. Assumed he was dead and moved on.

Mecha wakes up and easily finished Mecha Knuckles.. but then throat grabs Sonic. It's clear SOMETHING has gone wrong.

So we open issue 3.. with the goofy part. While the horror in this comic is mostly effective.. Mecha's Plan, while tragic and fitting.. is also.. pretty goofy.. see he has sonic hooked up to a brain machine Eggman abandoned for you see..

So yeah Mecha plans to put himself in sonics body and one of the scrapniks sees this and horrifdly runs off. Look sonic is a campy franchise. You know it, I know and I love it for that. It embraces coming from the video game and each of the comics does some fun weird shit with the lore given. The scrapniks themselves are a brilliant example of this.. but Mecah's endgame being "Put my brain in a non robot body" is just kinda silly. It fits and it's tragic, it's lack of sense makes all the sense with the state Mecha's in, but it's kinda goofy for what' sa pretty dark story abotu ptsd, self worth and abandonment. Sonic can do camp, but it has to fit the tone well and this story just isn't built for Robotnik's Mean Brain Machine.

We then get another flashback this time showing Mecha waking up.. with Sigma telling him his days as a tool of conquest is over. He's free now, finally free and we evne see a really great panel of Mecha.. happy

Sadly in the present Sigma wakes up to see his surrogate child.. has broken Mecha Knuckles and gone rogue. Thankfully the Badnik that saw all this got to tails, who quickly evil deads himself a scouter and some weapons

In the dark coridors they run into Sigma who explains waht the problem might be: He did his best to help mecha.. but like with Knux, his systems are way more advanced than sigma's used to, and figures the damage with Mecha Knux restored his old programming blaming himself. Sigma is a truly wonderful character, one of the best IDW has made and one I hope to see in the games or comics again. There's a LOT of potetial for this cast and i've been saying that a lot.. but it's true. It's weird to me two years out from this awesome mini no one's thought to bring these guys back. Maybe there's plans down the road for after Evan Stanley's run, we'll just have to see.

At any rate our heroes are at a horrifying disadvantage: While Tails, and presumibly thea udience, assumed Mecha would be slower and weaker due to his rust.. that's not the case. He easily floors the search party and gives a fairly chilling monologue as to why he's doing all of this

The lighting in the last panel is perfect. I said the series went light on the horror elemetns and I stand by it, even by kids media standards.. but it keeps enough. But what makes the series stand out so well.. is it's characters. Sigma the father the badinks never truly had and Mecha, tossed aside, broken and wondeirng WHY it's parent never came for him.. and ready to tear him apart.

He's also ready to make tails go down the hole after a decent fight scene.. though it does feel like tails gets jobbed out slightly. I mean.. he's on par with sonic and knuckles. He can't FLY which may be part of the problem, butit's wrong to bend him to being this much weaker just to make the story work. I didn't like it when the games did this for a while I sure as hell don't like it now.

So Tails goes down the garbage chute, at least Veruca Salt the little brute can keep him company, and prepares to do operation put my brain in sonic's body to make daddy love me again as we end issue 3

So as we begin the finale, Mecha Sonci explains how the brain drain works: eggman made it, got bored and since Mecha has doubts they'll ever escape, he can use sonic's ability to run across water... which begs the question why he can't, but I assume i'ts because , as we've seen a few times, his limbs seize up. He claims the scrapniks were never his friends, etc etc, which sonic dosen't buy. Thankfully said scrapniks beg him to stop.. and thus stop the machine mid transfer. Which does the only think I like about this thing.. it gives them a psychic link.

This also leads to a damn good fight as Mecha Sonic taunts sonic who is slowed down.. but powers through the pain. This is something that COULD have come up in a later arc but given the big finale to the starline saga was going on at the time, I understand. And it's again where the horror feels undermined: when it counted.. .sonic's injury didn't really matter and we get a big gorgeous fight. My issue is less that it's not full horror as the story told is gorgeously drawn and compelling and more it was marketed as a hroror book.. when aside from the first issue and a few scenes in the second it really isn't. It's not bad, and horror can be a lot of things. I'm ont a snob who say s"Well this can't be horror" This is horror adjacent, but you shoudln't market something based only on it's first issue and it left a bad taste in my mouth reading it the first time... but reading it this time.. that taste's washed out.

The truth.. is that the main story is really that good, with the fight crescendoing in Mecha Sonic holding on.. and planning to just die. He's given up, having failed to be what robotnik wanted.. and failed his friends, having come to his senses on his return to villiany, Eggman never loved him and wouldn't care if he came back as he has metal now.. but hating himself so deeply he alomst well. .unalives himself feeling he has no purpose. Thankfully sonic has some words on that

It's an ending I Love and as someone whose struggled myself, words you need to hear; live for you, not selfishly.. but simply how you want to. Just living itself is purpose... and thus Mecha does take his hand He can't actually lift him because super strength isn't a thing sonic has and the foot thing did tire him out a bit... something I forgot in that rant earlier but still stand by shoudl've had more consequences. STill everyone else shows up, willing to forgive their brother.. and also tails is here. Because despite everything.. their family. And family forgives when you deserve it.

So now Mecha Sonic's lost that self loathin, excused himself and let hoppe in. He's also been cleared of any egg data which wasn't easy, but is something Tails has done before. Gemerl should really hang with these guys. Mecha Knux is also both fixed and freed, and is standing all abdass in the corner, so he too can come back. We end on a heartwarming speech, as Mecha has accepted himself, that the future is uncertain and scary.. but it's his.. and he'll face it.

God this ending makes me tear up. Scrapnik Island. is excellent.. even more so on re-read and in sitting with it for this review. Mecha's arc is heartbreaking, well paced and the action and little dabs of horror are brilliant. I do think the horror parts of it were overblown.. but the genius concept of an island full of old badniks and giving Metal a new personality and character arc was genius, and it ends on a massive high that makes me want to see these characters again yesterday. There is a LOT of potetial in these character sand IDW is foolish to not tap into it yet and will be damn idiotic if they never do. It's a wonderful character piece that despite it's flaws, moves mountains and is one of the best sonic comics period.

[also-fours]

i want an idw shadow the hedgehog ongoing

come on, sega, you gave him his own game again, he's getting all this attention, clearly you've changed your tune about shadow just being sonic's dark rival that loses all the time and can finally allow ian and the others to cook with him for the first time since archie ended, let's get a shadow ongoing!

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

Your posts are making me excited for the sonic movie even though I’ve never seen or played a sonic thing in my entire life and my entire knowledge of the franchise comes from you. Tumblr has even started recommending me sonic fanart what the heck

Hell yeah! Special interests are magic.

If you wanna get into Sonic, a lot of the older stuff is pretty cheap on Steam- you can get the Sonic Adventure games for 10 dollars, for instance. Old consoles and games can be relatively cheap too depending on what they are- Wiis are like twenty quid, but Dreamcasts cost a fortune, It’s also really easy to emulate the old Mega Drive games if you’re okay with piracy and have a half decent computer. Hell, you could just play fan games if you’d like, there’s so many and Sega is extremely lenient with them (which is in part bc they’re incompetent as shit and mismanage their gaming division to focus on gambling but that’s beside the point) so it’s got a really vibrant community of very good programmers and rom-hackers. Hell, there are people developing actual official Sonic games now that got their start doing that.

Or, if you want content outside the games, there’s a ton of weird Sonic continuities out there that exist and most are like 20 years old and defunct so they’re super easy to find online bc no one cares to take them down anymore. There’s the old 90s sonic movie, which never gets enough credit it’s so good and it’s also in copyright limbo so you can find it super easy online literally it’s on YouTube. There’s the old cartoons, there was like three of them running at once for some reason some of them aren’t so great (sonic underground I am looking at you) but one of them was apparently really good? Idk i last watched them when I was literally six years old but like most decades old cartoons they’re not super hard to find on certain websites. on that note there’s the Archie comics, which are notoriously weird, very long, and also have been defunct for a decade so you can just find them online too. In Britain we had sonic the comic which was equally weird but finished way earlier you can find that one online easy as well. There’s also the IDW comics which are apparently genuinely amazing but they are ongoing so you might actually have to buy them. Then there’s Sonic X which is a genuinely really good anime that also has Sonic Adventure adaptations apparently? Which I never saw as a kid and I’m sad about. There’s also a show on Netflix I keep forgetting to watch L but if you have Netflix that’s there.

Anyway like. TL;DR there’s an absurd amount of sonic shit out there that’s all either really good, entertainingly bad, or both, and a lot of it’s really fucking easy to pirate and no one really cares. There’s probably something you’d like out there!

[sonicpanels]

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Ongoing) #80: "Big the Cat in: Swallowing Trouble"

Writer(/potential uncredted Layouts)/Inks: Ken Penders Pencils: Jim Valentino Colors: Frank Gagliardo Letters: Vickie Williams

Editor/Art Director/Outline Writer: Justin Gabrie Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick

[rondo-of-blog]

On the Beginnings of The Lara-Su Chronicles

Today is, as of writing, the last day you can pre-order The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings if you want to make it into the Special Thanks section of the book. Anyone who pre-orders after will be in the app, still, but I think it goes without saying the significance of having your name make it into the first printing. You can pre-order here.

Whether you go and pre-order it now or later, or if you’re looking back at this after the book’s come out, I think it’s gonna be worth the read. Today, I feel moved to write a little about what The Lara-Su Chronicles means to me.

It all started with the Archie Sonic comics. A gag comic that metamorphosed into the bonafide superhero book it came to be known as, that was inarguably the blueprint for what Sonic comics get published today. These things aren’t predestined, no divine hand laid its knowing finger on it to move it from one to another - no, it was the freelance creators who put in the work to make Archie Sonic what it was.

And no freelancer who touched the book can be said to have had a greater impact on it than one Ken Penders. Not Mike Gallagher, who wrote the very first issues; not Scott Fulop, who oversaw the initial transformation the book underwent as the editor; not even Karl Bollers, an incredible talent whose original concepts & characters come the very closest to rivaling Ken’s.

It was Ken who wanted more for the comic, for it to become what the readers of the time wanted it to be. Ken, whose eyes were trained on the countless fan-letters that flooded in, who would test each story idea of his first on his son to determine if he was going the right direction. Sonic comics and everyone who’s helped make them over the years owe him a great deal, whether they want to admit it or not, but it was the Knuckles comic series where he truly shined.

Though it’s become fashionable in some circles to claim he ‘shoved Knuckles down reader throats,’ it doesn’t take too long a memory to remember how popular Knuckles was - and is to this day. One need only look at the incredible reaction to the reveal of Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the very fact that there is going to be another Knuckles series on Paramount Plus, to know Knuckles stands out in the cast of Sonic the Hedgehog.

But where does Knuckles come from? Who is he? You can refer to wiki articles that note his species and status as a former rival of Sonic, you can watch YouTube videos collecting all the cutscenes for his story in the video game Sonic Adventure, but, as a ‘life-long fan’ of Sonic who is also a writer, I can tell you none of those get us a true insight into the interiority of Knuckles the Echidna.

You can restate his character’s premise like a dog chasing its tail, you can try and mine his angst at being so alone on his island until you’re blue in the face, but neither of those take the character himself in any kind of direction. Not forward, not backward, but stagnant. Only in the Knuckles comics did we see a true step forward, where words met action and the story of the echidna’s past finally had anything meaningful to say about the story ahead of Knuckles.

In the initial miniseries Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis Knuckles the Echidna, after B-stories and C-stories in the Archie Sonic series had laid the groundwork, Knuckles’s past came back for the first time. This was before Sonic Adventure, before Tikal and Chaos, and crucially… it was Knuckles’s story, first and foremost, not Sonic’s as it was in the end for Sonic Adventure.

The follow-up miniseries and ensuing ongoing comic series would expand upon Knuckles’s family, the society they had lived in the past as well as where they lived in the present, and even Knuckles himself. While the Chaotix may be familiar to Sonic fans, they and the Knuckles of these comics live lives and make decisions that SEGA’s characters have not and will not ever know.

In the Knuckles series, Knuckles doesn’t just reunite with his mother and eventually his father. He doesn’t just get into battles with greater stakes for his life than anything he had or would later experience in the video games, face foes more personal and meaningful than the leftovers Sonic leaves for him, and accomplish more than his official SEGA counterpart has in all the decades of history he’s had since. He gets a life - a home with people, not just an emerald and an empty island, to protect. And another soul, who starts off as an enemy, for him to fall in love with.

I’ve never met a Sonic fan who’s been able to reconcile this Knuckles with the echidna that SEGA calls Knuckles. In point of fact, every Sonic fan I’ve ever encountered considers the Knuckles series and every story of Ken’s that came before and after to bear so little resemblance to the source material as to no longer have the right to call itself Knuckles or to claim to have anything to do with what SEGA has done with the character. From their lips, this is an insult. To me, it is both the Knuckles comics’ ultimate badge of honor and greatest strength.

What’s the use of perpetually spinning your wheels and refusing to grow and change? What has Knuckles gained in the three decades since the character debuted, sitting on an island as the last survivor of a dead people? The right to mention every now and then he might take a break from being a guardian, and never seeming to follow-through on that? The right to star in animated shorts where he once again illustrates how little has changed since 1998?

I don’t say all this as a hater, either. I happen to like Sonic Team’s video games, I liked Sonic Frontiers, and heck - I’ve even enjoyed some of the comics they’ve printed in the current ongoing series of Sonic books. The simple fact remains that it’s 2024, Knuckles is still on Angel Island and he still has nothing but ghosts. In every way that matters, SEGA’s Knuckles the Echidna is as dead as his people.

Maybe SEGA does something new with the character in the future, maybe the writers they’ve entrusted with the comics become bolder with their plans, I don’t know and I don’t claim to know what will or won’t happen there. My point stands that today, all these years later, there still is no story told of SEGA’s Knuckles that gives him even half the dignity and respect that Ken’s stories have.

Now, all these years later, what is to become The Lara-Su Chronicles series of graphic novels is finally set to begin with the upcoming release of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings. In it, after a reprint of the unforgettably-excellent Mobius: 25 Years Later story, we’ll be seeing what awaits Lara-Su in the next chapter of her life and in the wake of her father’s death.

I’ve read literal hundreds of Sonic comics over the years. The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings is not one of them.

But that was always the beauty of the Knuckles series, now succeeded by The Lara-Su Chronicles. It started in Sonic, but emerged from it like a butterfly from a chrysalis into something unlike anything a humble caterpillar could imagine - and the sky’s the limit.

[thankskenpenders]

As I'm sure many of you are already aware, Did You Know Gaming (who have been doing some really great investigative work lately) recently put out a video on canceled Sonic games. The whole thing's worth a watch, but I have to bring it up here specifically because they talk about the plans for Sonic Chronicles 2 with a LOT of new info directly from the lead designer.

The section on how the story of Sonic Chronicles 2 would have went starts at 9:45. It's very interesting! He outlines the whole plot, including the fact that they were going to end with ANOTHER obvious plot hook for a sequel in the hopes that they or some other studio could keep the Sonic Chronicles series going indefinitely. Sonic Team even claimed they were interested in using Chronicles characters like Shade in other games. It's crazy to imagine a timeline where this might have become a pillar of the franchise.

I refuse to mourn the loss of the sequel, though, because y'all saw me stream the original. It was miserable. And with the original game selling and reviewing decently well, they would have had little reason to go back to the drawing board and overhaul that game's bizarrely hateful design.

Of course, DYKG also had to talk about the reason why the game was canceled. I was dreading this because of how often people tend to get the basic facts of the Penders cases wrong or downplay the obvious Archie Knuckles inspiration in Chronicles. But no, they did their homework! And they got the details right in part because, well... they asked Penders for comment directly. And he sent them back a MASSIVE wall of text about the whole ordeal, including some fascinating details that I don't believe I've heard before!

You can go to 15:19 in the video and scrub through to read the many, MANY screencaps of their emails from Ken, but here are the most interesting and/or hilarious tidbits to me:

#1: Perjury!

As we already knew, Ken claimed that the incomplete, photocopied contract Archie presented in court was a forgery, and that he had never signed a work for hire contract.

The judge obviously knew that one side had to be lying here, and thus was more than willing to present the case to a jury to let them decide the truth... and send whoever was deemed the liar to jail for perjury. (The judge apparently looked Ken directly in the eye when he said this, which... well, make of that what you will.)

Archie's lawyers knew that they didn't have a completely airtight case and obviously did not want to go to jail. So they decided to settle instead of going to trial in front of a jury.

(I will reiterate that Archie's arguments not working out is overall a GOOD thing, because we really do not want to set a legal precedent where corporations can "lose" a contract for a creator, make up a story about what was on the contract, and then have that hold up in court. They gotta get that shit in writing. And they didn't. They fucked up!)

#2: Sega was threatening to revoke the Sonic license!

As we knew, Sega wanted nothing to do with the comic copyright lawsuit. To them, it was Archie's job as licensee to deal with their freelancers. (Y'all watch Succession? You know how Logan loves lackeys who will eat shit for him without him having to even hear about the problem? Yeah.) And, in fact, according to Ken, Sega gave Archie an ultimatum: if they wanted their license to make Sonic comics renewed, they were gonna have to deal with Ken on their own, and cover all the costs.

Yeah, uh, this kinda makes me think that Sega being pissed about the ongoing Scott Fulop copyright case in 2016 may have been a bigger factor in Archie Sonic's cancellation than I previously thought. There was a lot going on at the time that could have contributed, but, y'know.

Anyway, Archie sued Ken for "damaging their business" largely because Sega was threatening to take away the Sonic IP. But because Archie couldn't ask Sega for help and they couldn't produce an original contract, they had to settle.

There's another detail I find funny here, though. Ken WANTED Sega to get involved in the comic copyright case, thinking that Sega would strongarm Archie into paying him the millions of dollars he wanted for "using his work without permission" so that they could be done with it. I mean, sure. I guess Sega wouldn't have cared about Archie's finances, but still. I'm not so sure that would've worked out for him.

#3: Shade!

Yes, Penders still claims he legally owns Shade, and under advice from his lawyer still intends to put out an NFT of her to put his claim to the test. Yes, it's incredible that he still hasn't put out the damn NFT. It only needs to be one image, which he already drew! The market has collapsed!

Anyway, building an argument off the legal concept of estoppel, he says that if Sega continues to not do anything about his claims that he owns Shade then, in the eyes of the court, they'll be forfeiting their claims to Shade altogether. But they aren't going to do anything because they never wanted any part in the copyright battles in the first place, and to them Chronicles is a long dead asset not worth fighting over. Why bother trying to use Shade again and giving Ken a reason to take them back to court when they can just move on? It's not like this franchise is short on characters. And so Ken can say that Shade and Julie-Su are literally the same character, and if he owns Julie-Su then therefore he also owns Shade.

Our copyright system is, indeed, a nightmare. Chronicles should have been halfway to the public domain by now.

#4: Sega's oversight on the Archie comics!

Ken says that in his first year on the series Sega only requested some dialogue changes here and there through the editor. They never requested huge script changes, and also never spoke to Ken directly. After that first year, they stopped asking for dialogue changes altogether, and Ken "had a free hand to do pretty much whatever he wanted." Yeah, no surprise there.

He does, however, say that Archie's original deal with Sega stated that they weren't allowed to create ANY new Sonic characters without informing Sega. They would've needed to make a contract every single time to get Sega's approval and make it absolutely crystal clear that Sega owned the whole cast. And then Archie just... didn't do that! And didn't tell any of the freelance creatives not to come up with new characters! Had Archie followed this rule, the trajectory of the comics would have been completely different, but there also never would've been a copyright battle in the first place.

What a shitshow. Truly.

[neurotypical-sonic]

okay which do I focus on reading the first: idw, archie, or sonic the comic. Im inclined to start with idw since its the shortest plus ongoing n I want to keep up

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Which era of Archie Sonic did you enjoy more? Pre reboot or post reboot?

Hmmm that's a good question. Idk I think I liked some of the writing post reboot better and I did like the new characters. I also personally think the removal of the love triangles specifically made the comic so much more enjoyable for me and opened up for better characterization for Sally. However, reading post sgw I did miss some of the old charcters (rip all those claimed penders ocs) and their now unresolved storylines, was sad at the loss of certain character struggles (like Rotor who was struggling between his health and wanting to be in the field again), and I missed how pre sgw had just some of the most insane or out of the blue plot developments/world building choices.

In terms of enjoyment, though, I'd have to say post reboot for the following reasons:

1. I enjoyed pre reboot for what it was more often than not, but I had my most fun during Flynn era. I liked how the Penders era moved things to being more serious, but I often felt like he had good and interesting concepts/ideas without the writing to back it up. Meanwhile, while Flynn wasn't perfect either, I felt like he was able to make a lot of those established relationships more believable to me, and while he also made some batshit plot choices he had more of the writing skills to back it up. This is all to say that aside from some stuff at the very beginning of pre reboot, it was a long while before I was able to really enjoy what I was reading instead of just taking things I liked where I could. Post reboot was a lotta Flynn, so despite the loss of characters and plotlines I enjoyed greatly, I at least felt like I could enjoy everything post reboot.

2. It didn't have all of those Sonic based love triangles. I know I know I'm a multishipper I ship Sonic with a lot of people but by god. I just could not take the Sonic/Sally drama anymore. Bunnie/Antoine was fine. Flynn actually made me believe in Julie-Su and Knuckles as decent partners. But by that point (and this is coming from someone who loved Sonic/Sally before reading the comic) everything going on re-Sonic and Sally's romance prospects with the opposite gender and each other was like beating a dead horse. And for Sally specifically, she had been recharacterized so so so many times pre-reboot just for the sake of drama that she often...didn't feel like her own character. So post reboot with the love triangles and the romance with Sonic removed I felt like we could really see who she was as a character and a clear vision of her ambitions/cares. I could feel like who she *is* wouldn't be changed on a whim for the purpose of plot.

3. As they say, people get better with practice. And while I thought some of his pre-reboot stuff was interesting, I felt like by post reboot era, Flynn had grown better at depicting the nuance of living under the eggman empire.

ㅤ

So yeah I guess I'd say, gun to my head? Post reboot. But it's really more complicated than that. I did enjoy both a lot, and especially in the last like 80 issues pre reboot. Pre reboot was wild an interesting in a way that I enjoyed with characters and storylines I loved, but it wasn't always written amazingly and contained much too many ongoing love triangles and mehhh canon relationships to me. Post reboot gave certain characters more time to shine as characters, reverted the pre reboot growth of other characters, delivered some of its nuanced situations better, and was largely written nicely, but you could often feel that the post reboot team was now restricted in a much different way than they were pre reboot (like, pre reboot's struggle was keeping up with existing storylines and relationships and keeping things true to what they have been, but post reboot's struggle feels more like it may have had some of Sega's restrictions we see nowadays).

In the end, though, I miss characters and storylines from both pre and post reboot after the cancelation.

[un-pearable]

Hi! Uh, I want to get into Sonic. Any shows/games you would reccomend starting with? An order? Also!! What's your favorite iteration of sonic (if you have one)

i think this might be THE question every sonic fan is dying to be asked. that is to say, hell yeah it would be my pleasure to make some recommendations >:] 

best things to try as a very first introduction to the hedgehog and friends (that are still relatively bitesized or accessible): 

the official animations for sonic mania, team sonic racing, chao in space, sonic colors, and most recently sonic frontiers. personal favorites are chao in space bc its adorable and frontiers for… obvious (knuckles) reasons (it’s about knuckles). these are short and sweet and absolutely adorable so they’re always some of the first things i recommend :] check ‘em out if you can - you won’t regret it. 

on that topic, Sonic Frontiers is a solid place to start with the games! it’s the most recent release so there’s currently a demo available on switch and it’s also on sale on steam right now (until Feb 13th!). few of the games directly lead into each other so picking specific games to start with is more down to personal taste, i’ll go into more detail if you’d like but for an introduction to the series? frontiers has been very well received and many consider it a return to form after the last few games, so it’s a good place to pick up the series! EDIT: I FORGOT ABOUT GENERATIONS. sonic generations is basically a Best-Of compilation of sonic’s most well known stages and it’s also perfect for a first time player. it was MY first game. how on earth did i forget about it. anyway it’s also on steam and it kicks ass!!!

alternately, much of the franchise was codified in the adventure games, so if you prefer starting at the beginning, they’re big recommendations as well! both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 are on steam and MANY playthroughs are online. SA2 was also the first of the sonic fandubs, so if you’ve seen any of those memes that’s where they’re from. 

also, if you’re into zelda games you’ll probably love frontiers. but if you prefer 2D/pixel art games, Sonic Origins just came out last summer and contains rereleases of the first four sonic games and Mania is always a fun option! alternately, try here for a taste of sonic 2 :] 

comics!! comics!!!!! the IDW Sonic The Hedgehog comics are killing it lately and double as canon and ridiculously fun. the first arc is issues 1-12 and if that won’t sell you on this funky little guy, well, there’s a lot more options too! you can find the IDW run here - but support your local comic shop if you can! 

for a little more bite-sized try the recent miniseries scrapnik island! it’s standalone from the main storyline and considering you’re a ninjago fan i think you’ll enjoy a fun story about morally complex robots :D 

the Archie series is amazing at times and so bad it’s funny at others - but what isn’t? while i am a HUGE fan it does require quite a bit of time and investment. other recommendations from the 300 issue+ legacy of sonic comics are available on request (i do not know how to shut up <3) 

tv shows!! Sonic Prime just released on Netflix and it slaps. not the most traditional sonic but it’s fun as hell and ongoing - we’re only ⅓ into the first season and there’s at least two guaranteed. the animation is astounding and it’s coincidentally produced by wildbrain just like current ninjago. i edited one of it’s kickass fight scenes here 

this is almost certainly far more than you need but i love talking about this series so thanks for humoring me :] i hope you enjoy them!! hmmm… they’ve all got their own appeal to me but lately i’ve been watching a lot of playthroughs while drawing (and i eagerly await the frontiers dlc so i have an excuse to replay it) and i think atm game sonic’s my favorite! the comics are delightful and the shows always have their own twists but i love good ‘ol game sonic… the others are more than just facets of his character and have their own great stories, but there’s something special about the original. this message brought to you by how absolutely astounding his characterization is in Sonic Unleashed. we missed you big guy. hope you have fun!!