#archie sonic 25 years later

[navii-blaze]

Royalty designs wips

[tenebraevesper]

Isekai'd As My Past Self (Sonic the Hedgehog AU Story)

Being a fan of Isekai Anime (currently watching Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord), I think it was inevitable for me to come up with a story like this.

However, before I start with the actual premise of the story, I first want to explain the setting though. This story is based on the trope of the main character dying or getting executed in some way, only to reincarnate as their past self (think along the lines of 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys A Carefree Life Married To Her Worst Enemy!), but with the caveat of having all of their future self's memories.

In this case, the story's starting point would be Archie Sonic's Mobius: 25 Year Later and Mobius: 30 Years Later storyline, with the main characters featured being King Sonic and King Shadow - or rather, their past selves before the events that led into 25YL/30YL took place. Silver would also be a major character in this due to his time-travelling shenanigans.

Before I dive into the plot properly, I will leave a warning here. If you read my previous analysis in regards to this storyline, King Shadow (The Altered Future & The Altered Character) & King Shadow (The Alternate Story), you would know that I don't like 25YL/30YL at all and therefore, I'm planning on not only deconstruct it, but completely destroy it in this AU story.

So, if you are a fan of the 25YL/30YL, the King Sonic storyline or the Sonally pairing, I'm recommending you to NOT read this AU story. If you do read it regardless of my warnings, don't come crying into the comments about how much you hate it. There is a reason I have warned you at the start and I'm not pulling any punches with this one.

With that said, let's dive into this story, and if you are curious about the additional text, it is the translated lyrics of the opening song of Villaines Level 99, titled LOVE or HATE?, which I was listening to while writing the story (the links lead to the TV Version and Full Version respectively). Honestly, if this were an anime, I'd probably use that song as it's theme song.

The Future

For example, if I let my hair sway a little

Will the voice I hear be LOVE or HATE?

Do whatever you like, no matter what they say

I won't stop walking

The story starts out sometime after the Sonic Universe Issue #5-#8. Take note, Mobius: X Years Later is, going by Pre-SGW canon, a possible ''What if'' future, not the canon future of Pre-SGW canon, which means that the events leading up to it were probably different than what we saw in later parts of Pre-SGW, but the timeline itself would probably similar enough.

The main focus would be on King Sonic, who is actually quite unhappy and bored with his life as the King of Light Mobius, thinking back to his past adventures and longing for the freedom he had, which is basically the core aspect of his character.

Before anyone starts arguing about why Sonic would be unhappy with his current life, take note that he actually expressed unhappiness in canon, specifically saying how he is not fit to be King, with Sally outright dismissing his feelings on the matter. Admittedly, this was also written by Ken Penders, who has no clue how Sonic works as a character and despite raising an interesting character point, quickly drops it like a hot potato.

Still, it is the one line I 100% agree with - Sonic is not fit to be a King.

This is why this AU story exists, as I want to dive in further into Sonic's thoughts on being a King. There would even be one event where another villain appears and King Sonic springs into action, only for Sally to literally stop him in his tracks, pointing out how he has other people that can handle this (this being a callback to a similar argument they had in Issue #134, where Sally basically told Sonic that he shouldn't throw himself in danger, especially since he's her consort and that they have other people fighting for them, meaning Sonic should stay by her side and rule with her - with Sonic refusing).

This is a similar case, with the addition of Sally telling him how he's the King and that he needs to think of his family and his people, how he can't go fighting like this since he's not anymore in his prime, and so on. All of which are valid points, but go against Sonic's core character.

King Sonic would obviously want to do the smart thing and keep Sally happy, but at the same time, wonders if it's really selfish that he also wants to be free from all of his duties as the King and go back to his adventuring lifestyle. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he has come to regret becoming King in the first place, but now that he made his choice, he cannot escape it.

As King Sonic thinks about this, he learns that King Shadow is back once again to cause chaos and, with other characters being conveniently absent, he goes to confront him despite Sally's wishes. King Sonic learns that King Shadow is on the search of some Mystical McGuffin Crystal (placeholder name, think of it like the Paradox Prism from Sonic Prime) that would help him once again to assert his rule over Light Mobius (as he tried to do with Tikhaos previously).

The two end up in a battle, with the Fake King Shadow sneering at King Sonic for not standing up to him and wondering where Sonic's fighting spirit had gone. This is the last straw for King Sonic and he tackles Fake King Shadow into the Paradox Crystal (not very imaginative, but hey, better than the actual placeholder name), causing it to shatter and the two getting engulfed in a bright light before everything around them turns dark.

The Past

Unstoppable news

They'll forget it tomorrow

Today is better than yesterday

Believing leads to a big victory

Sonic awakens suddenly, standing on a stage surrounded by the royal family and the people of the Acorn Kingdom. He is in a daze, wondering what had happened, with the first thing he notices is that he is much younger, being a teenager once again, and wonders if his battle with King Shadow and the whole Light Mobius future was just a dream.

He is then suddenly addressed by Sally, who asks him to finally make their engagement official to the public, but Sonic, still confused and baffled, and unable to comprehend what had just happened, just utters the following:

''No... I need... Shadow.''

He then leaps off the stage and quickly runs off to find the Faker and get the answer in regards to what had happened.

He eventually finds Shadow, who is equally baffled by what had just happened, although he managed to get an understanding of the situation faster than Sonic, and the two get into another fight, just to take out their frustrations on each other.

During the battle, they come to the conclusion that they somehow time-traveled back into the past, awakening as their younger selves right before the events that would set up the Light Mobius story had happened. In this past, they had just a major victory against Dr. Eggman and, as part of the celebration, Sonic and Sally, who had just made up and started dating again, wanted to make their engagement once again official - at least until Sonic ran off to find Shadow.

In other words, while one could argue that they pulled a Silver, this isn't a situation where they can just change the past and travel back to their own future. Instead, they got the opportunity to relive their past while also having the memories of their future selves. In other words, they are free to do whatever they want with the knowledge they have.

As they process this realization, Sonic accuses Shadow of becoming a tyrant again, and Shadow responds how the only reason he had done that was because even after Dr. Eggman was gone, other villains attempted to take over his place as the Big Bad and Shadow was the one who dealt with them to ensure peace. Had he gone too far in his mission? He did, but he felt that there was no other option for him left. There was power vacuum and he filled it by becoming a tyrant.

Sonic also realizes that, with him being back in the past as his younger self, he also got his own wish granted. He is not King Sonic anymore and he could easily go back to the adventuring he always wanted, enjoying the second chance, the freedom he had been granted. At the same time, he feels guilty because this would mean that the future he knows might not exist anymore, and it is through his own fault, even if he doesn't know the details.

Therefore, Sonic's main inner conflict here would be that he is torn between his desire for freedom and the duty he had towards the Acorn Kingdom as the future King, while Shadow's inner conflict would be his desire to protect the world through any means necessary and whether he should temper his more violent and cruel tendencies.

To make things more complicated, they are suddenly joined by Silver, who came from his own future to inform them about a looming danger that is threatening to tear up reality, with Sonic and Shadow realizing that they're responsible for this and have to work together now to fix their mistake.

This would be the main premise of the story.

The Present

Sync with the rhythm

I want to be swaying

But the outsiders are noisy

Noise canceling

As the story resumes, further details are revealed about Sonic and Shadow's current situation and the true nature of the shattered Paradox Crystal.

Through Silver's investigation, they learn that he Paradox Crystal was a powerful artifact that had the power of bending time and space by granting the user their innermost desires. This explains why Sonic and Shadow have returned back to the past as their younger selves, as Sonic's desire was to have his freedom back, while Shadow's desire was to have the power to protect the world in his own way. Not only that, but the shattering of the Crystal had also tampered with Sonic's own Chaos Energy, putting him in a similar state of agelessness as Shadow, which would allow Sonic to always remain in his prime so he could protect people and keep the world safe.

The three hedgehogs also learn that, before Sonic and Shadow, there was a different Entity that sought out the Paradox Crystal, but got trapped inside it and the Crystal getting shattered released it, which resulted in the Entity gaining the power to slowly fracture reality. To fix this mess, Sonic and Shadow would need to find the pieces of the Crystal that have scattered across the world like the Dragon Balls and bring them together. The reason why it is them who have to do this is, aside from personal responsibility, they're the ones among very few people who can actually detect and handle the Crystal's power and presence.

Sonic is excited to go on this adventure, only to get startled by a furious Sally calling for him and promptly hiding behind Shadow, as he doesn't want to confront Sally's wrath, yet. Shadow, in response, just rolls his eyes, while Silver is confused about what is going on. Basically, by Sonic saying ''No'' and running off earlier, Sally believed that she got shot down again and wants to give him a ''What the hell, dude?!'' speech about Sonic not caring about her feelings or even thinking about the situation for that matter.

Sonic attempts to explain himself, but is interrupted by Shadow, who tells Sally that reality is in danger and that's why Sonic ran off. This way, he also stops Sonic from accidentally revealing that he has memories of his future self, later explaining to Sonic that he doesn't really trust Sally with using any of that information. He points out that, while she can be proactive, when he started his tyrannical rule, she literally did nothing to undermine him, meaning that she still lacks some of decisiveness on her part.

Sally figures that, if things are that bad, then they should call the Freedom Fighters for help, although she would also have to discuss the matter with the Council of Acorn, as per the current rules, they cannot really act without getting the Council's approval.

Sonic, having enough of the Acorn Kingdom's politics and bureaucracy, decides to set out on his own, with only Shadow as his companion. He refuses to be anymore under the control of the government, be it the King or the Council, making the decision to work on his own.

He is here to protect them, not to be controlled by them, and if they don't like it, he can leave. He can do more good for the world if he doesn't have to wait to be told what he is supposed to do.

While there would be people protesting against this decision, Sonic and Shadow are already off on their adventure, traveling all over the world for the Crystal Shards Sonic Unleashed-style.

They would also face several opponents who would want the Crystal Shards for themselves, like Dr. Eggman, Ixis Naugus and Geoffrey St. John, and Scourge and the Destructix (perhaps even meeting Anti-Shadow and Anti-Silver if they have to travel to Moebius).

Oh, and one more thing - the engagement with Sally is off.

The Freedom Of Choice

For example, if I trace my finger a little

Will your choice be LOVE or HATE?

Do whatever you like, make your cheeks turn red

And spitting, boy

As I had mentioned before, the main inner conflict for Sonic would be the choice he would make in shaping his own future.

The expectations from people in-universe, as well as the reader, would obviously be that Sonic follows all the steps that leads up to the Light Mobius future (e.g. marrying Sally and becoming King), as that is the selfless thing to do, something that is expected from the main hero. Set right what was done wrong and follow the path to the anticipated happy ending.

But, is that really the ending that would make Sonic happy? This is a question Shadow would ask Sonic, wondering if he would really be happy to stay at one place, figuratively shackled to the duties of a King and abandoning who he is at his core.

In this story, Sonic would ultimately refuse to give up his freedom.

He will admit that, in the previous timeline, he did it to make Sally happy, but not himself. As a matter of fact, that was something everyone expected him to do, as they were the power couple and all that stuff, and he tried not to look back on the ''What If''. For him, there was no ''What if''.

However, now that he got a second chance, he decides to be selfish and do something for himself, especially when he experiences this sense of freedom once again by travelling all over the world, meeting new people and go on adventures.

The future itself is regarded as a huge ''What If''. Sonic has already experienced a future where he is the King and he wasn't happy about it. The question is, should he continue sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of others or actually be a bit selfish for his own sake? He doesn't even know how he ended up back as his younger self, so is he even allowed to change the present and the future? Would he be the villain because of that?

After all, it is not as if he would immediately return to the supposedly set Light Mobius future even if he fixed the Paradox Crystal. He was brought back to relive his past as he sees fit and he will be stuck in his teenage body with no way to jump into the future. So, either he can live through the whole experience again or just choose a different path.

Sonic would instead use the memories of his future self to help people, preventing any bad event flags from being triggered and protecting the world his own way. These changes in the present would obviously lead to the Light Mobius future not even being a possibility by default, allowing Sonic to live without regret.

Nevertheless, it won't be an easy choice to make and Sonic would keep doubting himself, which is why he would benefit from Shadow's presence.

Speaking of which...

The reason Shadow became a tyrant in the former timeline was to protect the world, ultimately losing himself in the process and feeding into his own delusions. When he returns to the past, he would still be in the mindset that he needs to protect the world by conquering it and eliminating any opposition. Sonic insists that he would be there to stop him, as he knows what Shadow is capable of.

Suddenly, Shadow gets furious, snapping at Sonic because the latter never saw just how bad it got before Shadow took over as a tyrant. As stated before, there was a power vacuum when Dr. Eggman died, leading to many other villains trying to take over, which basically made this whole situation a world-wide Game of Thrones. Shadow had to take over, because if he didn't, things could've ended up much worse.

Shadow also admits that he understands that everyone hated him, but he had to choose the ''ends justify the means'' option because he felt that there was nothing else left. Sonic, having gained a better understanding of Shadow's motives, would stop their fight and make an offer instead. He would tell Shadow that they could protect the world together as a team, especially since they have knowledge of the future and can use that to their advantage. Shadow would accept his offer.

The part that follows would focus on Sonic and Shadow's adventures across the world, where they would from time to time be aided by their friends, but ultimately, the story would be about them working together and developing a strong bond.

Now, that bond can be purely platonic... but if you are in any way familiar with my blog, you should already know that this would spiral into a Sonadow story.

If you don't like the ship or aren't a shipper yourself, you are free to skip the next part and resume at LOVE or HATE Story.

Sonic & Shadow - The Ultimate Duo

Differences in hobbies, differences in peace of mind

Even if I confuse you

My path is shaped by

Just LOVE or HATE

I'm certain that some don't like where this is going. Why should I write down such a story if one of its conclusions is a non-canonical ship? Well, if you still think the same, then you seriously should have skipped this part.

I had stated before that the story focuses on the concept of freedom and what it means to Sonic, and in this case, this choice would split off into three different paths. The first path would be following the set story, leading into the Light Mobius Future, aka the one this story will avoid. The second path follows a simple adventure plot, albeit going against the beliefs and expectations of the reader, with everyone gaining a happy, but platonic ending, which is where non-shippers should've stopped their read.

The natural conclusion would be that the third path follows the Sonadow Ending.

As stated above, in this path, Sonic would ultimately choose freedom over duty, which would make him ending up with Sally impossible. If he marries her, he becomes King and the Light Mobius future happens, which he wants to avoid in this life. So, distancing himself from any romantic relationships that would result in him being tied down, without him having any say in it, would be the next logical step.

If Sally questions Sonic about their engagement, he would tell her something along the lines of having thought about their future together, and he cannot see it happening anymore. He knows that a future with Sally means a future without freedom, and he knows that, the way he is now, they're incompatible.

Yeah, Sally (and the Sonally shippers) wouldn't be happy about that. After all, their relationship works on the idea of ''Opposites Attract'', which is probably one of reasons why people find it appealing. No offense to those who like the ship, but the issue that I personally see here is that ''Opposites Attract'' cannot work if the two sides are too opposing to attract each other.

In other words, Pre-SGW!Sally is too devoted to her kingdom and people and has stated time and time again that she prefers to settle down once this whole deal with Eggman is over.

Sonic does not work like that.

Sure, maybe Pre-SGW!Archie!Sonic would work, but I'm certain that by now, you have noticed that I'm writing Sonic's character with his Game!Self's characteristics in mind (and some helpful suggestions from Ian Flynn in regards to how he would approach Sonic being in a relationship).

First and foremost, Sonic is free as the wind. He would not settle in one place, even if he would visit it just to see his friends. He would keep travelling. He is not fit to be King (or even a father for that matter, even if he would try his best). His strengths lie in being an adventurer and he wants to fully embrace this side of him over the course of the story.

It has been a repeated statement in the shipping community that if you want to pair Sonic up with someone, this person should be a character who wouldn't warp who Sonic is at his core, but be able to keep up with him and accept his lifestyle. I have seen a debate about Sonamy, and while I find the ship cute and agree that Amy is someone who works hard to be recognized by Sonic, she too would be someone who'd prefer to settle down rather than always be on the move.

This brings me to the only person who not only recognizes Sonic's adventurous spirit and desire for freedom, but has immense respect for him, is capable of not only keeping up with Sonic, but even get ahead of him, and even if they argue, it is clear that both have the same goal in mind, even if their methods differ.

Look, I was never interested in shipping, so if you want me to like a certain pairing, you need to really convince me that it works and that the characters have chemistry and a charm to them.

Sonadow does have that chemistry and charm that makes me go ''Yeah, these two actually work together well.''

As for Sonic and Shadow, this adventure would definitely explore just how well they click together. To note, both Sonally and Sonadow are a case of ''opposites attract'', but with Sonally, they're just too different to work properly, especially when one is chained to duty and the other desires freedom.

Meanwhile, Sonic and Shadow are literally two different sides of the same coin, both never really settling anywhere and driven by their desire to protect their world, even if their methods differ. Both easily balance each other out and even them arguing, or just talking for that matter, sounds like them flirting more often than not. The only thing that needs to be added to their existing relationship is them becoming more vulnerable and open around each other, as it doesn't change what they already have or who they already are.

By spending so much time with each other, they would eventually realize that they have something going on and decide whether they'll fully embrace it or not, especially given their initial reservations about being in a relationship.

Sonic doesn't want to be tied down by anyone or anything and fears that he might lose his freedom again, while Shadow would be anxious about getting this close to someone again due to his own fear of losing someone important to him.

However, considering who the person is they're attracted to, they would realize that there really isn't anything to fear. Shadow would not take Sonic's freedom away from him, and Sonic basically has Main Character Syndrome, so there is no chance that he would die easily, at least not without a fight, something Shadow is well aware of by now.

Not too sure about how their friends would react to them being together, although I'm certain that they would be supportive.

Well, most of them.

LOVE or HATE Story

I did not intend to go this much into detail with this AU Story (which I came up with in a day, mind you), but once I started writing down the idea, I couldn't stop. Sure, there is probably more to write, but I would then have to start the story properly to add even more details of events and interactions.

While I'm somewhat interested in writing this out, I know well that this would end up in a very long story, and I already have other projects I'm working on, so this will remain as just as an idea.

I am open to discussing this story and what else can be explored and I'm eager to hear your opinion on it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

I simply wanted to put this out in the public to hear other people's thoughts on it. If you love the story, than I'm glad to hear it. If you hate the story, well... *shrugs* I had warned you that I'm not pulling any punches.

I'm curious about your response!

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Au Concept time!

25 yrs later Dark Mobius storyline except in addition to becoming the hero of Mobius when Sonic mysteriously disappears, Shadow also ends up forming a sort of rivalry with Scourge, who continuously antagonizes him and tries to take over Mobius as well. However, instead of Sally marrying Shadow to "fix him", Shadow gains more influence and following than any royalty on the planet, Scourge extends the "twin Kings of our worlds" offer to Shadow, and Shadow and Scourge develop a truce between their universes by getting married.

The former King Sonic returns to "his timeline" to find himself as a barely remembered figure, and to find monuments of King Scourge and King Shadow.

[whisper-and-tangle]

i spent like 20 minutes in mspaint making this

[sonknuxadow]

i dont come on tumblr much today because im doing other stuff and then i come back and the lara-su chronicles supposedly came out while i was gone. or at least some panels of it came out. okay

[fernsnailz]

Opinion on Sonic universe issue 5 to 8 ?

oh i despise most of mobius 25/30 years later. i truly consider it to be a terrible future for the entire cast and one of my least favorite aspects of archie sonic.

i think sonic universe issues 5-8 have some interesting concepts they introduce like silver's appearance and tikhaos, but most of these concepts are unexplored and/or underutilized (silver is asleep for like half of the arc and there's never much explanation as to how tikhaos even exists as far as i remember. also sonic's five-year-old children are the ones to defeat it lol)

i have a lot of thoughts as to why mobius 25/30 years later just doesn't work but i'm real tired rn so i might do a better analysis later. gist of it is the concept of sonic being a king is flawed to the core and the entire cast settling down to have their little nuclear families makes me violent and amy and rouge aren't even THERE. also they made knuckles a cop

and oh man don't even get me started on my king shadow opinions

[toaarcan]

So, after a literal fucking decade, Ken "Squirrel Years" Penders has finally opened preorders for The Lara-Su Chronicles.

The first (and likely only) volume is a 160-page graphic novel. 140 of those pages are reprints of the original Mobius: 25 Years Later comics, with the final page of the final story being edited to lead into 20 pages of 'original' TLSC material.

Only way this man isn't getting sued is if SEGA don't give enough of a fuck to fight him.

[true-blue-sonic]

I mean, if you ask me, it's honestly quite unrealistic to me that there's never been any character in any canon that's been into Espio. Pre-Genesis Archie gave Sonic love interests all over the place, Shadow and Knuckles get flirted with by Rouge on occasion (and Sonic does too now that I think about it), and yet Espio's never gotten anything - even in pre-Genesis Archie where he was slightly more relevant thanks to Knuckles, he just had an extremely brief dynamic with Nicole and that was it.

Oh wow, I had completely forgotten that Espio suddenly had some sort of friendship going on with Nicole when the whole town thought she'd turn evil and kill them! I do believe it came quite out of nowhere, but maybe I'm just missing something there since I know little about Archie. Regardless, I think the Chaotix are those characters who kind of just don't show up enough to really dive into such things like romance and deeper interactions with other characters, also in in the comics. Sonic, Shadow, and Knuckles all are part of the main cast of characters, so it simply makes sense there is more focus on them than more 'outer cast' characters like Espio; both when it comes to platonic friendships and all the romance dramas and heartbreak going on in Archie. Like, Vector apparently is interested in Vanilla; how often do we see those two interact? Never in canon, that's for sure, and in IDW and Sonic Channel (and even Sonic X, where it stemmed from!) it's rather scarce as well. I figure Espio suffers under the same: simply not present enough to really dive into his interpersonal relationships, unfortunately.

But I do think that in the overall world like how I have it in my fics, there's certainly people who are interested in Espio. After all, he's cool, diligent, strong, handsome, a ninja, a hero, has an air of mystery and control around him... I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few people who have expressed (romantic) interest in him before. But I also think that Espio really just isn't open for that, not in this way; I figure he reasons being in a relationship with some random citizen who has no knowledge on hero-ing and the life Espio lives might only reflect badly on his ninja training, detective work, and world protecting. And he definitely wouldn't be the type who is unable to reject someone or just gives a relationship a shot for the fun of it. That is why he was open for starting a relationship with Silver in my fics: Silver's goals, mindset, and general behaviour are quite aligned with Espio's. They're both heroes, they both have good control over their powers/abilities and work hard on maintaining these, and they both have that drive and stubborn personality that makes them never give up, intermixed with a great sense of caring for others. In the same vein, there's some contrasts between them as well, like Silver being more eager and hotheaded while Espio is more analytic and withdrawn. Silver supports Espio in doing the things he likes and desires like training and doing detective work, and Espio in turn helps Silver attain his goal of protecting the past and the future. It is something that a relationship with a 'normal' citizen would never have been able to give to Espio, I think. So though there might have been interest in him by other parties, I doubt Espio would have been particularly returning of those feelings anyway!

[humble-chaos]

in regards to the King Shadow arc the Archie comics had, I’ve never understood why Sally was just standing around while Shadow became a tyrant. You’re telling me she just gave up her power the moment they got married? That’s not the gal I grew up with >:/

So I made a minor AU where she became a tyrant too. Queen Sally proudly wears King Shadow’s symbol and his colors. Together, the two of them protect their kingdom by any means necessary.

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[navii-blaze]

Quick practice using copics again, pretty good outcome given I haven't used them in a while + shakey hands syndrome

[tenebraevesper]

King Shadow (The Alternate Story)

A while ago, I did an analysis on King Shadow from the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) comics, King Shadow (The Altered Future & The Altered Character), which is my least favorite take on Shadow the Hedgehog in official media so far. By the end of it, I had said that I might write down my take on King Shadow if you guys want me to, and I got a positive response. So, here is my concept.

Please note that this are my thoughts and if you have your own ideas regarding how you’d write King Shadow, I’d love to hear them.

First, I want to start off with the setting. King Shadow appears in the alternate future called Light Mobius in Ian Flynn’s continuation of Ken Penders supposed “magnum opus”, called Mobius: 25 Years Later... which is probably the worst Sonic story I have ever read. Ian’s attempts at fixing the story and turning it into something good fall flat mainly because the base of the story is really weak and while it has some interesting concepts, it really falls apart in the grand scheme of things.

The gist of Penders!25YL is that absolutely nothing happens until King Sonic is sent back at time to prevent a disaster and the story ends there. Ian!25YL picks the story up where it ended, explaining how King Sonic fixed the future, but it has been altered in such way that Shadow went on conquering the world for basically no reason and crowned himself king.

From what I understood, the reason why Shadow was written as an evil king was because at the time, he was still seen as an antagonist.

Now, thinking about the setting... I feel like we don’t even need it. Honestly, when I started writing this concept, I took a look at 25YL/30YL and decided to just Ctrl+Alt+Delete the whole thing and start with a blank slate. As a matter of fact, this doesn’t even have to take place in Sonic (Archie). It only has to take place in the Sonic Universe.

Next, the biggest issue I had was with was Shadow’s motivation for conquering the world - that being that he apparently had none. Admittedly, this seemed to have been somewhat expanded in Mobius: 30 Years Later...

If I understood correctly, the world had been at a war and Shadow conquered it to bring peace, but he turned into a tyrant in the process, using brute force to keep everyone in line. I think that this isn’t a bad motive, but it still needs to be worked on.

So, with the two main issues I had with this story (there are many more, but let’s focus on just these two for now), here’s my idea how the story might go. Once again, this is just a concept idea and if you don’t like how I wrote King Shadow, you’re free to tell me how you would write him. 

Trigger Warning - It is quite brutal.

Shadow’s descent into becoming a tyrannical King would have its origins in a tragedy (yeah, I like to make the characters I love suffer), with the story starting off with Sonic and his friends being involved in another battle against Eggman. This takes place at a point where Shadow has opened up more to his friends, like Rouge, Omega, Sonic, etc. He has moved on from his past, accepting his new life and managed to forge several close bonds.

This confrontation everyone participates in is on a grand scale, think something akin to the battle during the Metal Virus Saga from Sonic IDW, and is incredibly brutal, with the consequences of it that most of the characters have been either killed or died due to their wounds. Sonic has somehow vanished during the battle, leaving Shadow as one of the few survivors. Having witnessed the demise of his closest friends, Shadow would be deeply affected by this traumatic experience, the memories of his past overwhelming him.

He had lost Maria, and just when he had come to terms with moving on and living life with his new friends, he now lost everyone he cared about. This would lead to him shutting down, or at least becoming closed off once again as he tries to handle the grief and survivor's guilt, with the only hope being that there wouldn't be any conflict because Eggman is also gone. The world is at peace now, isn’t it?

Except, that's not the case. New villains would rise and Shadow would see it as his own responsibility to go to the front lines to fight these new villains, over and over again. He is The Ultimate Lifeform, the strongest being in the universe, and he feels that he needs to soldier on and protect the world as he had not only promised to Maria, but to himself. He also refuses to get close to anyone else, because he doesn’t want to deal with another loss.

Eventually, he is called to deal with another conflict, this one being rather petty. It doesn’t matter what it is, but the point is that this is what finally breaks Shadow. He realizes that no matter how hard he works to protect the world, there would always be new conflicts, even for the most ridiculous reasons and people would continue being ungrateful for the peace he’s trying to create.

So, he decides to take matters in his own hands.

After all, Shadow is the Ultimate Lifeform. He is nearly invulnerable, he is ageless, he is incredibly skilled with Chaos Energy and can use the Chaos Emeralds to turn into Super Shadow. No one can harm him and, more importantly, no one can stop him. 

In order to preserve peace, he takes it upon himself to conquer everything, crowning himself as King Shadow, and makes sure that all wars/conflicts cease. If someone attempts to cause trouble, he'll deal with them swiftly and, if they resist, brutally. Peace is finally brought back to the world.

However, one issue remains. Even though Shadow has achieved his goal of peace, he enforces it with an iron fist. People are living in fear of him and have to walk on eggshells as they believe that even the smallest argument or protest might get them thrown into prison or worse. They see him as a tyrant king, and Shadow knows that.

He knows that people fear him, but because of his immense power, no one would dare to challenge him. He doesn't pay mind to them though, as being ageless, he'll outlive them. His reign is absolute and no one can do anything about it. He is angry though, noting how ungrateful everyone is - they finally are at peace, yet they complain about it. He would, however, acknowledge that they're partially right - he knows that he's a tyrant for enforcing peace with an iron fist, but he doesn't care. It was a necessity.

Shadow is also dealing with loneliness, heavy trauma, survivor's guilt and understands that he twisted his promise to protect the world beyond recognition. He notes that he isn't doing this for Maria, but for himself. He knows that his old friends would be horrified by what he had done, by what he had become, but he saw no other way out of this situation. He knows that he is the villain here, and he has embraced that role fully during the time that had passed.

Then, some time during King Shadow's rule and him dealing with a resistance of some sort, Sonic suddenly appears seemingly out of nowhere.

Now, I haven’t really thought about what would happen to Sonic, but the general idea is that he may have experienced some kind of time travel, which flung him from the past into the King Shadow!Future. He may have even had some help from Silver.

Regardless of what happened to Sonic, he has talked to the leader of this resistance movement and learns not only about the deaths of his friends, but also about Shadow's tyrannical rule and decides to confront him. The resistance members, not really knowing what kind of person Sonic truly is, figure that Sonic is going to remove Shadow by force, possibly even kill him, and support him.

Shadow also hears about Sonic's return, and while he's shocked at first that Sonic has somehow miraculously survived the battle, he decides to prepare for their eventual encounter. Interestingly, he actually welcomes Sonic with open arms, despite being aware that Sonic wants to fight him, and when Sonic attempts to talk things out, he punches his rival.

This escalates into a battle between the two, where Shadow reveals what he had gone through and admits that he knows that he has become a tyrant and that people hate him, but he feels that he was too far gone to change. He had been hoping for that eventually someone would come and put him out of his misery - and Sonic is the only one who can do that. 

So, the two fight, going all out on each other, with the battle ending in Sonic’s victory. However, instead of destroying Shadow, who is laying on the ground, defeated, Sonic offers him his hand, much to everyone’s shock. Sonic explains that he’d rather stay with Shadow and help him deal with his trauma, and the only reason he fought the latter was because he knew they both needed to blow off some steam without putting anyone else in danger.

Sonic explains to Shadow that they both dealt with a heavy loss and he is still grieving the death of his friends, but he isn't going to lose another friend, that being Shadow himself. Sonic wants to help Shadow heal, pointing out that he and Shadow had the same goal in achieving peace, except Shadow went overboard in his grief, and he doesn't consider Shadow a lost case. 

While still in shock, Shadow accepts the proposal, grabbing Sonic’s hand and getting up, but is basically arrested by the resistance. They still want him to be punished for what he had done, and Shadow agrees to it, even if Sonic protests, because he feels Shadow has suffered already enough.

As it turns out, Shadow gets banished from his own kingdom, as they have no means of imprisoning him, and when the court debates on whether they can even do that, since they would have to trust that Shadow wouldn’t return on his own to take back his kingdom, Sonic replies that he’ll keep an eye on his the ebony hedgehog.

Once left alone, both Sonic and Shadow are aware it will take a while to heal from what had happened to both of them, but Sonic is just glad to at least have one friend by his side, suggesting they travel together from one place to another and help those in need or go on adventures. Sonic notes how regardless of everything, he will continue to protect people, with Shadow agreeing - ending the whole thing on a bittersweet, but hopeful note.

Whatever happens afterwards, they will face it together.

EDIT:  

#Isekai'd As My Past Self (Sonic the Hedgehog AU Story) - a spiritual successor to this story idea.

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)  

[ponett]

Got anything special planned for TKP's 10th anniversary coming up?

Nope! Well, not currently, anyway.

The thing I really wanted to do was get the first part of my big Penders video essay out for the 10th anniversary. It all lined up so perfectly! 10 years since the start of the blog, 20 since Mobius 25 Years Later was published, 30 since Ken's debut on Archie Sonic, and the same year that he put out the first Lara-Su Chronicles book and the Knuckles show was released. And then it just didn't work out like that. I've barely made any progress on the video, or even its script. I haven't really felt motivated to work on it. I got sidetracked by other writing projects, and needing to set up my new blog. And also I'm just very burnt out on endless Sonic discourse at the moment

So yeah, idk what I'll do for the 10th anniversary in November. I'd like to do something to mark the occasion, but if it's not the video then I don't know what. Maybe I'll just draw something.

[dootnoot7125]

oh hell yeah this rules.... i too have ancient sonic OCs of middle school days. i should draw them again, thank you for the nostalgic throwback in return (:

Posting my old Pumpkin Hill fanart over here today because why not. Happy Halloween 🎃👻

[sonknuxadow]

was digging through all the archie sonic panels i have saved to find a specific image and its all coming back to me now god help me

[angelkitty54]

Thoughts I had on Sally Acorn and her role as "Princess".

Look, there's a lot more active and unconscious sexism in mainstream media then we like to admit and let's face it, Princesses are rarely portrayed as possessing any form of power or authority despite their rank. Neither are Queens for that matter; always considered below the King in that regard. The Patriarchy at work.

And Princess Sally Acorn is unfortunately a victim of such misogynistic tropes.

The problem is, the Archie comic writers were determined to make her into another stereotypical powerless princess, but unfortunately for them, she was fundamentally not designed that way! Sally Acorn was created as the sole remaining heir to the throne; one not only fighting, but leading the fight to take back her kingdom! She was meant to rule, her character being designed to do so in fact. Which is a very large part of why she was so inconsistently written: when she was portrayed as a Princess she was meek and subservient, but as a Freedom Fighter she was fierce, decisive and a proactive leader!

When you really look into her character, Sally was not raised a princess, she was raised as the last remaining heir to the throne, meaning she was effectively raised to be King. And it shows! Sally, even as a child was leading the Freedom Fighters, was a regarded as being in a position of authority by those living in Knothole, she lead negotiations and forged alliances! She was already doing all the things a true Ruler is supposed to do!

Yet the moment her father came back she was effectively demoted to being a hapless little girl. To be fair, it does make some sense to an extent. Sally does not know how to be a princess, at least not by her very traditional father's standards. She's been searching for him for all this time and finally has him back, of course she'd want him to be proud of her. So, naturally, she'd try her best to conform to his desires, but she was always meant for greater things.

That whole thing she had with the "Source of All" and Sword of Acorns just further cements Sally's true place in the royal hierarchy. A literal cosmic or god-like force (whatever was going on there) wanted Sally to be Queen, and add an enchanted sword called out to her, wanting her to wield it? Anyone else getting the Sword in the Stone vibes here? Of course the writers forced her to not want it and give it all up, because reasons I guess, despite going out of their way to show us all how in universe Sally was the One True King of the Acorn Kingdom.

At least her brother and her boyfriend recognised pretty much right from the start who she truly was. Sonic had always campaigned for Sally to return to lead the Freedom Fighters. And Elias tried his best to support her, knowing she was a much better leader than him.

Not to say Elias wouldn't make a good King. He had his ups and downs, but the his character really shone in the Secret Freedom Fighter story arcs. You could really see him coming into his own then. With Elias taking on the role of heir, it frees up Sally to go back to leading the Freedom Fighters. Her authority was always recognised there at least; her own little kingdom as it were.

It's very easy to imagine the Freedom Fighters traveling the world as a kind of superhero team, lead by the power couple that is Sally and Sonic. :)

But if she were to take the throne, it definitely would be nothing like how they represented Queen Sally in the 25/30 Years Later arc. Not just because they completely nerfed her character entirely, also because Sonic never would have become King to start with. Marrying a princess does not automatically make you a king!! You have to already be a prince in your own right, or literally everyone else in line for succession, including your spouse, has to die for you to gain that title! Even then you'd have to have had some sort of claim to the throne to start with!

The highest rank Sonic could have feasibly achieved would be "Prince Consort", but logically his title would have been "The Queen's Husband" given he was a commoner. And let's face it, Sonic would happily be Sally's trophy husband.

But anyways, this has gotten long, so in conclusion:

Sally Acorn is the rightful ruler and One True King of Mobius. She would have made a damn great Princess and Queen if not for poor writing coloured by sexist views. But she is also just as much a Queen while leading the Freedom Fighters!

(And she totally should have kept Excalibur the Sword of Acorns! Tho her energy swords are cool too!)