#brought to you by satam

[whumperofworlds]

Whumper kidnaps Whumpee and creates an exact clone of them to send to the team to fool them and to figure out where their headquarters is.

The clone acts and looks exactly like Whumpee, except that they don't have their quirks. No one noticed this... except for Youngest.

Whumpee usually gives them a secret handshake to Youngest, but this clone didn't do it when Youngest asked them to do it. Youngest chalked it up as them being stressed... until it was nighttime.

Usually Whumpee kisses them a goodnight forehead kiss, but they didn't. Or that they look through some of their favorite books to read tonight but Whumpee chose one that neither of them liked. Maybe Whumpee didn't even say goodnight to Youngest.

That tipped off Youngest that this is NOT Whumpee, and Youngest secretly tells the team that Whumpee was acting strange, and that they suspect that it wasn't them, but no one believed them.

Meanwhile, Whumper forces the real Whumpee to watch as their clone acts around the team, and Whumpee's heart sank. Would their team figure out that the clone was a fake in time?

[cupofadonis]

Wow, it's been a while since I drew something based on Sonic the Hedgehog!...

Well, well, I tried my hand at the Sonic Ova style a little, and I liked it!!

Honestly, the world of Sonic Ova - Planet Freedom is for me the most beautiful, interesting and canon place, and I am very sad that this world did not and never received its continuation...

This whole story with Sonic living on Mobius or Planet Earth is some kind of nonsense to me, because when I see cultural inconsistencies in the Sonic canon (which does not exist?? wtf-) I feel almost physically ill. A lot of characters were lost, deleted despite games and comics.

Eggman as a character stands still, and Sonic's world is not even clearly divided into which states...

Sonic's Ova revealed its potential for me in one film - What happened to the people in the new territory of "Dark Eggman"? Was it the apocalypse? How long ago did this happen? Is this why people moved to the fly islands? Why did people acquire animal features (For example, Sarah's cat ears and tail)? Is this due to the merger with the "Mobians"? Were there anthropomorphic animals before the apocalypse, or are they a consequence of it? Maybe the reason?

What about Sonic and Tails' house? Damn, did you see this COOL DESTROYED PLANE?!? Now remember Tails' house from IDW comics, which is just a damn joke

I can't love the damn Black Doom saga enough because it feels like a cheap Metarex parody. The only good thing Black Doom brought was the character Eclipse from Archie Comics -...Oh yeah, he doesn't exist anymore either. Like Cosmo.

Sally was a typical good character from the 97's who could stand up to the mouse from Chip 'n' Dale, but due to the company's negligence we have no SatAm ending, some kind of porn parody in Archie from Penderson, #Rally4Sally

No Sonic Ova, no completed Sonic Multiverse, there is no properly explained story of Silver, Blaze and Elise from Sonic 2006.

What about the fact that it was Sonic who was the Ultimate Life Form in the plot of SA2? What? Don't remember this? But what about the blue flask that fell to Earth and was considered lost? I congratulate you on the bad narrative of the SA1 and SA2 game series, friends...

Sonic Ova and SA1-2 feels like the only correct versions, it pains me to see how Sonic’s character is now changing for a new audience and the psychopathic egoist and narcissist Sonic turns into a sweet and shy hero, although even taking into account the seemingly terrible and negative qualities, Sonic was a hero...

Changes have always been and will be, this is normal, I don’t want to shout that it was better before and the grass is greener, but for me the canon is only Sonic Ova vision, and I would like to add this vision for myself in my Sonic Ova AU. I think it would be fun. Just for me and my auditory...

So ... What do you think about all of this?

[crusherthedoctor]

Eggman's design in Stellar

As you may know by now, Eggman looks a little different as described in Sonic Stellar. His design and anatomy are the same Modern Eggman we all know and love or pretend to love, in the case of those that deliberately misrepresent his character, but he's got a new outfit. Naturally I made sure to describe it in the fic proper, because it'd be weird if I didn't, but I wanted to go a little more in-depth here to give some insight on the thought process behind it. This won't take too long, since it's honestly not that complicated.

So what motivated this? Well, it was actually a late addition. Originally, as was the case in BtS, he was in his regular Modern attire, and even when I began to brainstorm it into existence, I hesitated on it for the longest time because I was concerned as to whether it'd be seen as leaving a piss mark on SEGA's design out of the arrogant belief that it needs to be improved... like what those in charge of certain adaptations tend to do with the characters and universe in general. However, after remembering that there is precedence for one-off shifts in the games proper - see Rouge in Heroes, or Sonic's soap shoes in SA2 - I considered it fair game.

That said, don't assume it's a change for the sake of change: there's a plot reason for it. Since Eggman is attempting to convince the locals of Viridonia (aside from Trudy) that he's a changed man, he switches his appearance to symbolize this... but since he can't help himself, he still has to stylize it so that it's as him as possible.

Now it's time to talk about the actual look. The basic gist is simple enough. Just a nice debonair suit, like this for example:

...but in the distinctive Rrrrrobotnik style, and with the waistcoat unbuttoned, because this man does not operate like most gentlemen. I tried to balance out the doctor's usual colour scheme for it, so you have black for the shirt and pants, red for the waistcoat, yellow for the golden lining within said waistcoat, and white for the shoes (with black tips, like Swanky here), as well as the gauntlets (see below). The Modern jacket may not be present, but I paid tribute to it in spirit.

Instead of having those goggles on his head that he only uses during leap years, I transferred anything they could do to his glasses, reminiscent of how they worked in '06. Yes, there was some '06 inspiration among all this. That's how you know the doctor is officially off his gourd by the time of Stellar.

Of course, the most striking aspect of his new attire are his aforementioned gauntlets, complete with a selection of nifty abilities that allow him to be even more hands-on than he already was... and some clawed tips, cause he felt like it. This was inspired by his control glove in the movies, as I figured that by this point in Game Eggman's career, after all that he's had to put up with, it was a logical next step for such an infamous control freak. Plus, I just think it's neat for him. :D Note that they're not cluttered compared to the rest of his design, they'd have a simplistic look despite some buttons and the like.

Why did I make them gauntlets, instead of just gloves like normal? I found an appeal in how they contrast with the rest of his otherwise low-key dress sense (for his standards). It felt like the sort of thing he would do, as an extra way of commanding your attention. And yes, I'm aware that some readers might assume he has actual robotic hands now, and declare it a brilliant SatAM JoJoke, but I hope repeated use of the word gauntlet should clarify that's not the case... >_>

Fun Fact: Originally, he was only going to have only one gauntlet, for a little bit of asymmetry. However, I realised that Starline already has a similar thing going on, and since I brought him into the story, it might be redundant. So Eggman has them for both hands. Think of it as his unspoken way of one-upping his #1 simp.

[mashounen1945]

A whole-ass analysis of Sonic's relationships with women, started by one stupid meme I saw on Discord

Description: Eggman showing a photo of Sally Acorn (from Sonic SatAM, with a design from the Archie comics), Queen Aleena (from Sonic Underground), Blaze the Cat (from the videogames, with a design from one of the 2010s games) and Princess Elise (from Sonic 06), pointing at that photo and saying "Dear Sonic fans: if Sonic is a freedom fighter, why does he keep supporting monarchs? Curious."

I know this is supposed to be funny (and Eggman is being fallacious in order to make his nemesis look bad, which is to be expected), but it actually got me thinking.

We've all seen at least one Sonic fan complaining (either rightfully or not) about writers always trying to shoehorn introduce a human girl as a new love interest for Sonic. This seems to happen no matter what piece of official Sonic content it is, whether it's made in Japan or made by Western authors, whether it's tie-in/licensed media or material directly controlled/overseen by SEGA and Sonic Team.

Well, here's another similar phenomenon, which is why I'm writing this: in so many continuities both Western and Japanese, there's frequently a female character from royalty whom Sonic becomes or already is emotionally close to.

In the Discord server where this image was posted, someone else brought up a good point: Sonic being a "freedom fighter" or any other sort of guerrilla warrior is a thing only in the now-defunct Western continuity (SatAM & Archie, and the British comic published by Fleetway), whereas he's "just some guy doing his own thing" everywhere else. The interpretation of "Sonic is a free spirit" by the many branches of the Sonic series comes into play here, too: "just some guy" Sonic from the videogames and "freedom fighter" Sonic from SatAM are different interpretations of that description of the character's personality (this will be important later).

After looking at that image, I realized something else: in most cases, the fact that those characters are royalty either isn't heavily relevant to the plot or isn't treated as something unequivocally good/desirable.

Sonic SatAM didn't really emphasise Sally being a princess and the heir to the Acorn King's throne. It was in the pre-reboot Archie comic that some writers started focusing on Sally's status as royalty... and also being weird and creepy about it in the process (pre-reboot Archie-Sonic is also the only piece of official content outside of Sonic Underground where you'll see Sonic actively defending a monarchy, albeit this happened only because of Ian Flynn's awkward attempt to create drama, not because he intended to convey a pro-monarchy message through his stories).

The same happened with Blaze: as far as I remember from playing Sonic Rush, her being a princess is casually mentioned a few times, and this happens mostly when Blaze is talking to herself and thinking about something, not during a conversation with another character (there's one specific instance where Blaze's status might be relevant for her character arc, but I'll talk about that later). Something similar happens with Merlina in Sonic & the Black Knight: she's royalty as well (Kinda? I'm not sure which exact position she used to have in Camelot's society before Sonic showed up, but I'm sure it was an important one), but the conflict she's part of is related to a different facet of her personality, and you could tell the story anyway without mentioning Merlina's status.

For Blaze and Elise (and Sally, but only when the writer is not Ken Penders or Michael Gallagher), if any of those characters being royalty is mentioned or focused on, it's not really portrayed in a good way or as something that makes any of them happy. Blaze being "the princess of Sol" comes with the duty of protecting the Sol Emeralds, which led to her isolating herself, and her character arc in Sonic Rush is all about overcoming that and trusting others once again.

As for Elise... Well, there's a reason why, when people try to argue the story for Sonic 06 could have been great if given enough time, they often use Shadow's or Silver's story rather than Sonic's as an example of 06's potential, but still... At least the bones for a compelling story surrounding Elise are already there, and I'm willing to bet it'd be kinda similar to Blaze's character arc in Sonic Rush.

And here's another similarity between Blaze and Merlina. The latter felt she had the duty to save Camelot at all costs, and while it's debatable whether or not Merlina was being emotionally crushed by that self-imposed duty in the same way Blaze, Elise and Sally were, it's clear that her obsession with that duty backfired spectacularly and ended up being potentially harmful to everyone else in Camelot in the finale of Sonic & the Black Knight.

[The only exception to all this, as well as the only case where Eggman may be at least partially right in that meme, would be Queen Aleena (who also breaks a trend here, since she's Sonic's mom in Sonic Underground). But the consensus in the Sonic fandom is that Underground is so far removed from what both the character and the franchise represent that it's not really Sonic content anymore, so it doesn't count.]

Another important thing here is the whole thing about Sonic being a "free spirit", and here's where someone else (in another, different Discord server) said something like this:

This just circles back to being "free". When Sonic writers focus on characters being of royalty, it's usually shown that having to run things in an entire nation, being responsible for the well-being of everyone there, realistically is a difficult thing to handle, especially for someone who's a late teenager or a young adult at most (Blaze, Elise), even without all the magical/mystical baggage that comes with having to guard/protect a source of near-godly power (a parallel universe set of seven Chaos Emeralds, a dormant half of a God of Time) on top of being expected to rule an entire country and care for its people. Sonic is a "lost factor" that characters like Blaze, Elise and Sally need in order to feel a bit of happiness and relief because he's "just there", but he still fights for everyone he cares for when he needs to.

This could also be applied to Merlina, and even the genie Shahra in Sonic & the Secret Rings (shout-out to @silvermun for accurately pointing out the similarity between Elise, Shahra and Merlina regarding their motifs in their respective stories).

[r0ckyreck]

So

Good morning,

18/09 was the day that the show premiere

While not everyone loves them, but Sonic SatAM is a part of Sonic. i really care for it even if it doesn't jive with the rest of the Sonic idea.

The Freedom Fighters will forever be Sonic's friends, Tails being cute, and the amazing Dr.Robotnik, Snivley, too. This man always brought me a good laugh and a reason to see him more

And not forgetting to mention Sally Acorn, the dudette protagonist of the show, specifically designed to be the Sonic's foil character; to show Sonic's weaknesses and strengths and always a fun time to see her grow and to learn more about the kingdom she must rule in the future

To artists, the sound design crew of this show, and of course Ben Hurst it's incredible to see what little of sonic everyone had but was able to bring a character so energetic and fun for small screen.

God bless you all.

I also wish to bring attention to the wonderful animation of the SatAm Rejuiced which is a participation of many artist do re-do a episode of Sonic SatAM

https://youtu.be/QPeSS-VJ180?si=NtPD5LHxKGowqvIl

[beevean]

I figure your question why Prime has to be canon in a rhetorical one, but I see it as having two intertwined sides:

The people who clamour hardest that spin-offs like Prime and IDW are canon know very well that the games are the true, unshakeable canon that everything else is based off of, and that Sonic will first and foremost remain a game franchise;

We've seen with Archie that, once it was dead, it was dead-dead. The only people with power over the Sonic franchise who care still about it are those who worked on it, like Flynn and Evan. From SoJ, the "lmao we don't care at all" could not be greater. Same with Boom, except no-one in power cares about that anymore, and it is never ever brought up in anything ever again. Sticks got nuked from Tokyo 2020 after appearing in Rio 2016, and her mention in Frontiers is English-only (aka probably at the hands of Flynn).

Thus, once Prime and IDW die, they will most likely die-die as well. Forgotten, unmentioned, with zero interest from those (ultimately SoJ, I figure) who could bring them back, and maybe with some characters appearing in a mobile game and some more toys made of it until it fizzles out and they never show up anymore. I don't get the feeling SoJ is particularly interested by either. Thus, the people who like these spin-offs surely must know that there will be a day that the spin-offs in question are dead in the water.

But if it is canon, if it is a true part of the games, then they can never be forgotten. Then they will always exist, because Sonic as an active franchise will only cease to exist once there are no more games being made!!! (Of course, the franchise will remain, but no new content will be made for it anymore.) That is why I figure it's so important for the true hardcore "but it's CANON😤😤" fans that their spin-off is canon: because if they are not canon, they'll eventually disappear with zero new content for them, while the actual canon part of the franchise will continue. I can understand why that is saddening, but in the same vein, it's also a bit of a delusion considering the many canon-breaking differences between the actual games and the spin-offs that have been extensively doven into already. Not to mention the fact SoJ just might not care for either.

I understand what you said, and from that point of view, it makes sense.

But... that's simply not how it works? Again, Sonic X is arguably the most "canon" adaptation so far: SEGA was more directly involved, and it straight up adapted some of the games of the time. And yet, it's not relevant anymore. Flynn had to confirm, as if there was any need, that he can't bring back anything from that anime, because they don't own the rights.

Canon is not a badge of honor you can earn! It doesn't elevate a work above others. It simply is a collection of "official" material that a newcomer might need to catch up on to understand a franchise. Not even all games are canon - Knuckles' Chaotix, for example.

IDW was originally pitched as being an alternative timeline of sort, splitting from Forces, and it still is since Frontiers came out more than a year ago and IDW doesn't seem to have any intention of including its events. It's not canon. Whatever your opinion on the comic is, it's its own thing. Tangle being namedropped in Frontiers, in an easily missable optional line, is about as canon as the SatAM characters appearing in the bonus stages of Spinball.

Archie might be completely dead, but it's still kept alive in the hearts of many fans. That's the most a spinoff can get. That's just how it works.

[randomthefox]

Tbh the source you used in question of why the freedom fighters suck was the Archie freedom fighters which is a separate continuity from the tv show, though tbh if they did a similar plot line in the show, they probably would’ve gone the same route that the comics took. So my reasoning probably doesn’t matter. That said though, i genuinely honestly forgot that the freedom fighters did that on the comics until you brought it up, I had one of those Archie Sonic special books, that covered the entire mecha Sonic storyline, and looking back on it now, yeah that was pretty scuffed, I didn’t look at it that way, because I was a stupid kid. It’s weird that Archie fans almost never acknowledge this when bringing up the freedom fighters, it is for an obvious reason LOL.

Bro SatAM lasted two half seasons and then fucking died. The Archie comics lasted decades. Whenever people are talking about the freedom fighters, they're talking about Archie.

And yeah it seems like everyone who likes the freedom fighters is just conveniently forgetting about the fact that they tried to execute Sonic. Because he "disobeyed orders." While he was pleading that he was framed.

[greenyvertekins]

I don't like IDW but I stopped following you sometime after you started posting about it because tbfh you just became a fucking downer all the time about it over time. All you people do anymore is bitch. You engage with basal level Tumblr bait to justify yourselves and all the while just sorta look like circlejerky assholes. It's depressing. This is not a zone for people who like enjoying things more than they like shitting on something, and it's as gross feeling as it would be on any other topic tbh. You give.... Anti Steven universe vibes minus the social justice.

"After you started posting about it"

You...you do know right that when I first started posting about IDW over its first year or two, I was incredibly positive about it, would consistently travel to pick up issues and excitedly give my perspective and reactions to each panel I found interesting and was eager to get my hands on the next issue? IDW Sonic first started in April 2018. You can see my insight posts about it via my archive.

I only became more negative about IDW after the conclusion of the MV arc. As in retrospect, the foundations for it's later problems shown early on became all the more apparent as the story progressed. Such as IDW!Sonic's manipulative behaviour. And the Resistance (Which were disbanded at the end of Forces) gradually being revealed basically as the Freedom Fighters V2.0 and moulding Sonic to fit them. Because they just can't leave Archie's/SatAM's corpse alone. For instance, I started off liking Starline. Found him original. Found his simpery for Dr Eggman entertaining to watch. Then he started being paraded as the more rational character, Eggy taking a level in dumbass to toot his horn. He brought-in the Deadly Six to hijack the plot, having a bunch of characters very much disliked by much of the fandom "up the ante" because apparently, the threat that was already there wasn't threatening enough. He gains an OP power up, allowing him to consistently outwit game characters as powerful as Shadow. Even with that, he goes from being written as akin to a buttmonkey subject to numerous indignities like being smothered by an avalanche and beaten up by the younger characters to being the largely competent by comparison to Dr Eggman and the second coming of Snively.

And then he gets killed-off without much fanfare..., effectively ending any chance at repair that could be done for what was originally an interesting character.

The discontent I feel about IDW largely stems from how consistently the ball was fumbled. How it became yet another showcase for Flynn's annoying writing habits i.e Moving characters like chess pieces and having the story progression dictate the characters rather than the characters believably dictate the story, not having an especially good grasp of character, turning the book practically into another retread of Archie in all but name.

It's such a shame.

[nianderful]

ok i’m sorry i don’t normally do tangents like this (anymore) but anyone who shares a similar sentiment to those tags needs to know:

idw sonic would not exist without archie sonic. sonic frontiers' story, characters, anything people enjoyed about it writing wise would not have existed without archie sonic. anything the likes of ian flynn and evan stanley have contributed to sonic-wise? you owe that to archie sonic.

that comic was where they all started working on the franchise professionally. ian flynn spent years building archie sonic's reputation up and cleaning up the mess left by bollers and penders. he didn't even quit even after that lawsuit ripped everything he created for that universe apart. and his contributions to the comics played a role in him being brought on to write for frontiers. even before that, he was writing the spin off comics for sonic forces. that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for archie sonic. and not only that. archie sonic is the main reason the freedom fighters lasted as long as they did. that comic carried on their legacy, and the legacy of satam, making that show's characters almost as iconic as sonic himself. even penders, as much as we all love to hate him, created memorable, iconic characters who are still being missed and remembered today. evan stanley's art was featured in an archie sonic comic, leading to her becoming an official artist for it and idw. and that's probably the case for so so many others i can't name right now but the point is: there would be no idw sonic without archie sonic. archie sonic paved the way for everyone from tangle and whisper to surge and kit to belle and lanolin.

you can hate ken penders all you want, but put some respect on archie sonic's name

[the-whispers-of-death]

This is revenge

When they go low I go lower >:c

TW: death. Lots of it.

Malcolm has attempted 3 times, and Satan brought him back every time so he can never have peace

Carmen looks a lot like Meizian's childhood friend that died, so he's extra protective of her, but he also gets sick whenever he looks at her for too long

Hari basically has no freedom because Meizian is very possessive and worries for Hari's safety. It took 4 month of begging for Meizian to let Hari go for a while

Ursa's dad constantly sent letters about him visiting Ursa for his birthday but Ursa's dad never did. It's one of the main reasons he hates celebrating his birthday

Yarrow knows when and how he dies

Sicko is constantly scared that he might lose it and eat bus friends

Milo knew that there was no god when his son died (dw Milo Satam will raise him right)

-🔮

Me: *trying to write the reunion post*

You: Have some angst as revenge for all of the Traitor!Kali posts.

Me: *having whiplash from going from writing something happy to reading something sad*

I suppose I deserve it.

[speedofsoundsketches]

Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to lament on what could have been rather than appreciating what one’s got? I mean it’s not going to change what happened in the past but it doesn’t mean things won’t improve in the future right ?

I brought up those tweets from Tail's creator regarding his concepts mostly to address asks I've gotten trying to excuse divergent "canons" or lore of things like SatAM.

"They didn't know better! They never got anything from SOJ so they had to make everything up!"

This is point blank, from the horse's mouth, saying that isn't correct.

It's not lamenting so much as just making sure we're all on the same page.

[sonicfanj]

Would you at least like to see Sally Again?

I'll start by asking that you bear with me, as my answer will be rather long due to it not being a simple yes or no despite the structure of the question. The problem as such is that I approach the subject from several different points of view, and they don't all land on the same answer. A simple both undermines the complexity of my relationship with the subject matter, and I feel does not satisfactorily address why it is not. To begin then I'll break down the "no reasons and then move on to the "yes" reason. Of the "no" reasons, the simplest is just that Sally never entertained me. Back when I was a kid and dropped anything originating out of SEGA of America (SoA) due to thinking my then favorite character, Metal Sonic, was about to appear in SatAM only to get roboticized Uncle Chuck, Sally nor the Freedom Fighters had any pull to make me regret it. In fact, while I remembered the tonally dark art direction and that they used their own character rather than Eggman, I actually forgot about the Freedom Fighters themselves. It wasn't until Generations first trailer came out and I finally got involved with the online fandom that I even heard about them again. But there was no nostalgia on my end as they never appealed to me enough as characters to care. However, vitriol quickly started to paint my perspective. For the next two "no" reasons it must absolutely be noted that I am an Amy fan, she's my second favorite character in the IP after only Sonic (still love Metal though), and exclusively a SonAmy shipper for ships involving Sonic himself. This bias unquestionable paints my perspective, especially learning about the shipping wars on the back end combined with the entitlement of Sally fans to insist that Sally should replace he character made by one of Sonic's creators in the games. As someone who is hugely behind the creative vision of Sonic's creators, this becomes another point of emphasis on my bias. During those early years in the fandom, Sally, the Freedom Fighters, and Archie Sonic on a whole became a personal affront to me and it would take me several years to grow up and actually give them a chance. However, even then, Sally only started to appeal to me when after the SGW and she appeared to have a sisterly relationship with Amy. At this point I was actually growing invested in her character, but as soon as it was time to travel the world they had no further interactions before Archie's end relegating her back to being uninteresting to me. More so than that though, just from he position of being an Amy fan and a SonAmy shipper, I don't want to see Amy's name dragged through the mud again by her own most vile of fans who hate Sally and would feel threatened if she was brought back (yeah, I've experienced being a victim of the nastiness of Amy fans just because I look at Amy differently from other fans), nor by the unpleasant and entitled Sally fans and Sonally shippers who would unquestionably come out of the woodwork to attack Amy , her fans, and insist she isn't needed now that Sonic's real love interest has finally returned. I don't want to see the shipping wars return, and that's enough reason on it's own to not want to see Sally back.

Part 1 of 3

[saccharinescorpion]

im glad you had fun playing murder of sonic the hedgehog! i don't know how familiar you are with the series lore or anything, but you should look into sonic adventure 1 and 2. even if you don't feel like playing them, the stories in those two games seem up your alley!

i think my previous experience with the series is my family owning a single (2 episode) VHS of Adventures of Sonice The Hedgehog and a few of the books based on SATAM, as well as sometimes playing Sonic Advance (? i'm pretty sure it was this one) when i had a certain babysitter who would let her play the game she had brought lol

thanks! maybe i'll give it a shot

[crusherthedoctor]

Eggman

You know most of them well. He should actually be evil. The usurp/betrayal trope needs to disappear for good. Sage subtracts from him instead of adds. The claim that he's stale is bullshit because he's one of the most versatile video game baddies out there. He was perfectly fine before Frontiers. SA2 Eggman - while filled with great moments individually - is held back by being Shadow's unwitting pawn for the whole game. IDW Eggman is NOT superior just because they keep doing the silhouette thing with him. SatAM Robotnik is a paper tiger who ain't got shit on the real Eggman.

I'm trying to think of one that I haven't brought up as often before. How about this: I could never pick between Deem Bristow and Mike Pollock, because they both represent the doctor perfectly in their own ways. Those two, plus Jim Carrey and Long John Baldry, make up my personal four horsemen of the eggpocalypse.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episodes 1 - 5: The Origin Story!

It’s been awhile since I first teased this, huh? Sorry, but this ended up taking me a lot longer than I expected. Life got in the way. And Sonic Frontiers. And Pokemon Violet. And I only have up to episode 13 or so actually written up at this stage. But I wanted to start getting this out there, and considering I’ve already written so much on this, I thought it might be easier for everyone to enjoy in smaller segments. So I’m going to attempt to release this one episode at a time on a daily basis and see how that goes.

So, to business. Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80’s/90’s syndicated cartoon? Obviously the answer to this question is, “What? No, of course not. ArchieSonic was a comic book, not a cartoon. Are you thinking of SatAM? Or Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog? Are you just high? How did you come to this ridiculous conclusion?” And okay, that’s fair. But consider this  - syndicated cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s shared a lot of the same story tropes. Gotta pad out those 65 episodes, right? And interestingly, the ArchieSonic series happens to have used a lot of those same tropes across the 20 plus years it was running. I refer you to the following Discord conversation:

Well, that sounded like a challenge to me. When I first saw this I replied with yays or nays to each item on the list just off the top of my head, but I thought it would be fun to do a more in depth analysis. So let’s have a look at our list here, shall we?

There’s a lot to go through, so let’s get straight into it with today’s episode! Or in this case, episodes.

1 - 5: Origin story. Make it a week-long event. Really pad it out. Can sell it later on VHS as The Movie.

There’s actually several instances that explore the origins of Sonic and the Freedom Fighters. Naturally, the first instance is the very beginning of the comic series.

Issue 0 was released in November 1992 - holy crap, that’s now more than 30 years ago! - and was essentially the pilot episode for ArchieSonic. It was the first issue of a four issue mini series with the main series later launched in April 1993 with Sonic the Hedgehog #1. The mini series isn’t a continuous story arc, like this trope suggests the first five episodes of 80’s and 90’s syndicated cartoons were, but it did introduce Sonic, Robotnik, and the Freedom Fighters (except for Bunnie, she wasn’t brought in until issue #3 of the main series). The second story of issue 0, “Oh no, Robo! No Mo’ Mobo’!”  explained in a flashback how Robotnik took over the planet and Sonic joined up with Princess Sally and the other Freedom Fighters. 

This history would be eventually retconned in the main series, but I’ll get into that later. This story by itself doesn’t fit the multi-episode requirement, but if you include the entire mini-series as the origin story then I think it works well enough. There’s also a story in mini #3 that recounts Sonic and Robotnik being raised together as kids…

…but that turned out to be a dream, so let’s not dwell on it.

Interestingly, when the ArchieSonic series was cancelled after Sonic #290 in December 2016 - over 24 years after issue 0 was released - the final issue was also telling the origins of that world. When ArchieSonic underwent a soft reboot in issue 252 the entire backstory of the world saw a lot of changes, and this was explored in the “Genesis of a Hero” arc that was supposed to run from Sonic the Hedgehog issues 288 - 291.

As you can probably tell from the covers, the post-reboot comics’ backstory was much more heavily linked to the story of the games. The first three issues explored how the events of Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive/Genesis version), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive/Genesis version), and Sonic CD happened in the comics. 

The final issue of this arc would have been about Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but to the despair of many a fan (including myself), the series was cancelled after issue 290 and so issue 291 was never released. There’s some incomplete art of the issue over at the Sonic News Network if you’d like to see it for yourself though.

As sad as it is that the ArchieSonic series was cancelled after lasting for so many years, it’s interesting to note that both the first and the last comics that were published both told part of Sonic’s origin story. It actually makes for a pretty neat bookend.

There’s an argument to be made that the Sonic Genesis arc that ran from issues 226 - 229 also counts as an origin story.

This story was the result of Dr. Eggman rewriting the world with the first Genesis Wave. Like Genesis of a Hero, this arc also showed what the world of ArchieSonic could look like if it was more heavily influenced by the games.

This history re-write was undone by Super Sonic in issue 229, but it’s still worth mentioning for this category, I think. 

There are two other instances I can think of that explore the origins of the characters, but I’m going to save those for another episode. I think this one is beefy enough already. But for the record, I’m thinking of Sonic #43 and the two Sonic Kids super specials. 

Tomorrow’s episode: body swap! Stay tuned for the chaos and shenanigans!

[sallyacornsmackdown]

LET'S GET A NICE ANON TO YOU. how long have you been a sally fan for?

Oh neat, let's ramble about that! My introduction to the Sonic series was actually the Fleetway Comics and soon after that I also saw SatAM on TV. Someone I knew recorded some of the episodes for me, so I mostly just watched the episodes we had on video over and over. It was mostly season 2 episodes like Dulcy, Cry of the Wolf, Drood Henge, Spyhog, Blast to the Past Part 1 (but not Part 2 - I didn't see that until years later) and of course The Doomsday Project I didn't have Internet as a kid, so I only really knew about the Archie Comics from going to a friend's house who did have Internet and reading about this other American comic where Sally was featured. Also, we'd read Sonic fan comics online that included her Years later, I got my own Internet and kept up with the Archie Comics through reviews and the odd page scan with no context. I eventually found a store in the UK that would order the Archie Comics for me and ironically, the first issue I was able to get was #160 (if you don't know why that issue is special, it's the first issue written by a certain Ian Flynn). I was like "Oh cool! That guy who wrote the fan comics I liked as a kid is now writing the actual comics!" I still loved Sally as a character, but I was less than keen on the "long-hair era" of her character, even when I did eventually read the older issues via the Sonic Archives years later. Which isn't to diss anyone who does like those, they're just not for me. But I felt the comics I was reading from #160 onwards brought her back to the character I enjoyed as a kid and I've loved every version of her ever since This is a sidenote, but I actually started shipping Sallicole during the Pre-SGW days when Nicole seemed fond of Sally after becoming more of a person, so when Post-SGW went all in with Sallicole, I was totally there for that. I do like SonSal as well tho - both are good