#especially how ian flynn was writing him bear the end

[littlepikmins]

Getting into a special interest that has comics or is mainly comics is both good and bad cause it's like "yay! years and years of content to look at!" but it's also like "ick what the hell were they even trying to do during this run? Why was this character acting like this at this point? Imo this whole period sucked for the characters"

[mobius-prime]

255. Sonic the Hedgehog #186

Mogul Rising (Part Two: Devil's Due)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! and Matt Herms Colors: Josh Ray

Sonic struggles to fight against Mina, Mighty, and Tails at once, as Mogul speaks to him through them. He angrily tells Mogul to let them go, and when Mogul mocks him for not listening earlier that day Sonic rightfully points out that Mogul didn't even begin to explain his own position in any amount of detail, instead just basically saying "haha, surrender." Ash, alerted by the noise and the empty bed, appears in the doorway of Freedom HQ and seeing the chaos, leaps in to grab Mina, not realizing she's being controlled.

Abruptly, all three mind-controlled friends break off the fight and run away in opposite directions. Ash is upset and confused as to why Mina would act so strange, so Sonic explains what's going on and then offers to bring him along to interrogate Mogul, something which Ash immediately accepts if it will let him save Mina. Once they get back to New Mobotropolis Sonic furiously orders Mogul to tell him where his friends are, and Mogul happily obliges.

Both Ash and Sonic are horrified, especially with the knowledge that Sonic wouldn't be fast enough to save all of them in time, something Mogul gloats over before offering them a deal - he'll bring them all back unharmed, if Sonic brings him the Chaos Emerald currently being kept within the city. Sonic, seeing no other choice, grimly agrees, before rushing away with Ash to sneak into the castle, into the chamber where the emerald is. Nicole, realizing they're trying to steal the emerald but not knowing why, starts putting up barriers trying to stop them, but they dodge without breaking stride and nab the emerald, rushing it back to Mogul as a montage shows the three puppets coming closer and closer to their deaths…

Nicole hysterically asks Sonic why he would do such a thing, and Sonic and Ash explain why they didn't really have much choice. Mogul, tiring of their conversation, uses his magic to force Nicole's hologram to dissipate before knocking Ash aside and telekinetically grabbing Sonic. To Sonic's shock, Mogul immediately announces that he has no further need of his new Fearsome Foursome and "releases" him from his service. Why? Well, apparently, he's realized one key rule of this universe - Sonic always wins.

With that, Mogul teleports himself and the other prisoners away, and Sonic and Ash return to Freedom HQ, which the three formerly-enslaved individuals have returned to. Ash comforts Mina while Sonic talks to Tails and Mighty. They're both embarrassed at what happened, Mighty even admitting he now knows how Knuckles must feel, but Sonic reassures them both, saying that while the villain may have won this time, they're going to get their chance to strike back sooner or later.

Honor-Bound

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Josh Ray 

Hey, speaking of Knuckles! He's having a pretty bad time of it as he flies over Albion in secret, watching the last of his people work to rebuild the city while blaming himself for everything. He's glad that at the very least Remington has been returned to normal, but can't bear to face his own family or anyone else, believing that for now they'll be better off without a Guardian looking after them. He uses a warp ring to leave, but Kneecaps notices him and babbles, and Lara-Le barely manages to catch a glimpse of him before the warp ring disappears. Man, poor Lara-Le. I miss when she was a much more major character, to be honest. She's so sweet, and doesn't deserve any of the terrible things that have happened to her. Knuckles warps himself to the oasis in the Sandopolis desert, where the entire dingo army has set up camp. With General Kage gone, General Helmut von Stryker, who has apparently been hanging out here all this time, has once again taken control of his people, and upon seeing Knuckles curtly informs him that his people are thriving here, and expect to make their way back into the heart of Angel Island before long.

Knuckles, I'm sorry, but what the hell are you thinking?! Look, I agree that the dingoes have been wronged by the echidnas over time, but have you forgotten that not long ago these guys turned into literal Nazis as soon as Eggman gave them a chance to? Did you completely miss the fact that they are the ones that ran the concentration camps that killed off ninety percent of your people?! I would think that that alone has completely robbed them of any chance at redemption. Like, Knuckles seriously seems to think here that Kage is the sole mastermind behind the echidna concentration camps, but meanwhile here in the real world we kind of all agreed that "I was just following orders" wasn't a good enough excuse for all of the grunts who served in the Nazi regime, and I would think the same should hold here. Do you really want to welcome an entire army of people back into the heart of the island who not two months ago were gleefully torturing and slaughtering your people? Again, we are talking about a literal Nazi allegory here, this isn't me projecting, these guys were literally modeled after the Nazis. I think forgiveness and "live and let live" is not the right choice here, especially if Knuckles is already feeling so guilty about hurting his people, because the dingo regime hurt his people far more than he ever did during his single day as Enerjak.

Jesus Christ. Anyway, Knuckles returns to the main part of Angel Island, hiding in the bushes near "Shrine Isle," which is apparently what we're calling the tiny floating island that houses the Master Emerald shrine. I guess everyone just decided that keeping it blatantly out in the open is the best plan now, so the Chaotix have worked together to build a bridge over to it for easy access. Ray had spotted Knuckles using a warp ring earlier but was unable to follow him, and Julie-Su says sadly that if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be. Knuckles, watching from within the bushes, hopes they'll go away now that the bridge is finished, but Rouge's voice from behind him interrupts his brooding, asking if he plans to just go back to being a hermit once again. He's irritated, not wanting to talk to her right now and insisting that everything bad that's happened on the island only happened because he left, but she presses on, reminding him that with Eggman's sheer power and Finitevus' unpredictability, the island likely would have been attacked and decimated anyway and it's not solely his fault. Knuckles gets angry at this, yelling that the Brotherhood's methods protected the island successfully for hundreds of years and he's the only one (besides Athair) who's really broken tradition.

Well, good on you, Rouge! Knuckles thinks on it for a moment, watching his friends play around next to the shrine, and then concedes the point, deciding that he should protect everyone he can after all. He walks out to greet everyone, who are overjoyed to see him… and then Rouge smirks from her hiding place, murmuring to herself about how gullible Knuckles is and how she can't wait to "wrap him around her little finger." Oh come on, Ian, really? Look, if there's one character I think Ian has not at all figured out yet, it's Rouge. He seems to see her as this scheming, callous, manipulative bitch who's only interested in treasure and breaking up relationships for fun. Hell, Penders wrote her better than Ian currently does, and that's saying something. In the games, yes, Rouge is manipulative and a bit shady, but she's not at all a bad person. After her experiences with Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2, she explicitly mentions how she's been influenced to become less materialistic and to search for "something better" in life, and by the time of '06, she's nothing but a positive influence on those around her. Sure, she's still not above using shady or illegal means to get her way - she is part of Team Dark, after all - but in general her morals always end up lining up with those of the heroes, and she's intensely loyal to those she considers her friends. There's hints here and there within the games that she may have a thing for Knuckles, but to be fair, there're just as many if not more hints that she's not into anybody and only flirts at all to get an edge over others. Adding in this little bit at the end where she's acting all scheme-y while watching Knuckles just makes her seem like this terrible and insincere person when that's not what her character is supposed to be like at all. To be fair, Ian does get better at writing her later on, particularly when she finally starts being paired up with Shadow as a team, but for now, I'm definitely pretty salty at how she's being treated here, considering she's one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters across all canons.

[mobius-prime]

228. Sonic the Hedgehog #160

Birthday Bash! (Part One): Giving and Receiving

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

Welcome to the beginning of Ian Flynn's reign, everyone! As many of you will know, Ian is a fan favorite amongst readers of the comics, and for good reason. Objectively, I'd say he has a much better sense than any previous writer of how to construct dynamic and interesting stories, as well as a great head for writing dialogue. Every character has their own unique voice when speaking, and as someone who takes a particular interest in dialogue in her own writing, it's something I admire a lot, especially given how stilted and unnaturally formal a lot of dialogue by Karl and especially Kenders often sounded, regardless of who was speaking. That said, I think that it took a good year or so for him to fully come into his own as head writer for the series, so some earlier issues are a bit strange and not up to par with a lot of his later work. Some of this, to be fair, is due to him essentially playing clean-up for this first year, untangling a lot of the bizarre leftover plot threads that Karl and Kenders left behind, and generally trying to make the world of the comics conform a little better to that of the games. All that aside, anyone reading the comics will likely notice an immediate and apparent improvement in the overall quality of the work starting with this issue. This is helped along, in addition, by none other than the very talented artist Tracy Yardley! who always (well, almost always) introduces himself in the story credits with an exclamation mark. It's kind of his calling card. Tracy took a while to really improve his art as well, so while his earliest issues sometimes have some strange proportions and poses, later on his style became easily one of the most visually attractive and recognizable ones in the series, simplifying a lot of the inconsistencies that many character designs had as well as doing away with the strange pseudo-human proportions that some artists tended to favor, particularly with the female characters. All this said, I will say that Ian isn't going to be immune to my criticism, as while I do recognize his skill as a writer and the good things he brought to the table, there are definitely some problems I have with the way he handled certain things. We'll cross those bridges when we come to them, however, so for now, let's dive into the new world he's creating and see how he does!

Elias and Sonic are walking on the outskirts of Knothole as Elias explains why his father approved the Metal Sonic troopers from last issue. We don't even really get to hear the explanation, but to be fair, we hardly need one, as the idea was so insane to begin with that the only true explanation is that Kenders needed a plot device. Sonic tries to make Elias promise that "you royals" won't hit him with any more weird surprises, and Elias says they only have one more, leading him to a building next to where the Great Oak Slide into the village ends.

I mean, canonically he's supposed to be turning seventeen here, even though realistically he should be turning eighteen, because remember, for him to have turned sixteen in StH#68, had the Robians be deroboticized in early June in StH#123, and still have managed to spend close to a year in space before turning seventeen, literally everything in between the two aforementioned issues would have had to take place in the span of a few weeks - yes, that's counting the month-and-a-half time span that Sonic was confined to Knothole, as well as major events like Eggman's return and the entire Green Knuckles saga. You can see why this huge discrepancy still bothers me, right? Hmph. Anyway, no sooner has the party begun than an explosion destroys the door, and two new players enter the scene - Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polar Bear from Sonic the Fighters! Nack's been part of the comic for long enough now, so it's cool to see these two make their first appearance. Bark is totally silent - as far as I remember, he never says a single word during the entirety of the comic - but Bean, in the absence of an obvious personality to draw from in the game, has subsequently been given the personality trait of "criminally insane" in the comics.. He's erratic, he talks to himself, he cracks jokes where jokes really shouldn't be cracked, and most importantly of all, he loves his goddamn bombs. Bean starts chucking said bombs left and right at the various Freedom Fighters in the base, while Sonic tangles with Bark. He seems to think these guys are only after him due to something Evil Sonic did in his place, something which he has by now apparently finally explained to all the women of Knothole, and manages to break away from Bark to stop Bean's bombing spree by pinning him to a wall and asking about Evil Sonic. However, Bean happily insists there's been no mistake and he wasn't even aware of Sonic having an evil twin, nor does he particularly care. Oh, speaking of Evil Sonic…

Huh, it seems that Evil Sonic has actually explained his true identity to Rouge in between their previous failed attempt and now. I'm surprised she hasn't outright abandoned him by now due to Rouge not exactly being evil-aligned to begin with, but I guess the pull of the shiny is just too strong for her to resist. And as it turns out, Bean suffers from a similar insatiable need! Fiona pulls out a ring of keys and shakes them around, completely distracting Bean from his current activity of bashing Sonic's head in, and throws them out the hole he made in the wall, prompting him to immediately abandon everything to chase after them. Fiona then advances on Bark, who by now has gotten himself cornered by every Freedom Fighter in the room, and convinces him to stand down as he's outnumbered. Outside, Bean plays with the keys and talks to them, seemingly convinced that they're a beautiful woman with an "adorable accent" who wants his number, when a suspiciously-Shadow-shaped shadow converges on him, prompting him to try to invite him into smashing Sonic as well. Good luck there, buddy, I don't think Shadow usually runs with crazy…

Geez, Sally, cut Fiona some slack. Not everyone had a squeaky-clean record - hell, just look at Shadow! Back in the Chaos Chamber, Rouge and Evil Sonic begin to battle Locke, who tosses Evil Sonic to the side as he perceives Rouge to be the bigger threat. However, that turns out to be a bit of a bad idea, as with Rouge tied up in the fight, Evil Sonic takes his chance to go after the Master Emerald without her, obviously recognizing it as more than just a shiny trinket.

Back in Knothole, Shadow explains that he's only here to thank Sonic for saving Hope, as he knows he wouldn't have been able to do it on his own, and reminds him that as soon as he leaves this building they're back to being enemies, as Shadow's still aligned with Eggman for now. Sonic, to his credit, seems to recognize that Shadow is only allied with Eggman because he doesn't yet know better, and cheerfully invites him to come back here whenever he cuts out on that deal in the future. It's at this point that everyone realizes Bean has quietly snuck into the brain trust's comms room to casually let Eggman know that he and Bark failed to take Sonic down, and when Fiona ushers him back out of the room, Eggman is only too happy to let Sonic know personally that he wishes him a happy birthday and he's sending him a new, more metallic present. Within seconds a thud outside alerts them to the arrival of this present, and everyone rushes out to see a strange figure emerging from an egg pod - a figure which resolves itself into the combined forms of Crocbot and Octobot, now merged into the singular entity of… Croctobot! (Don't worry, Ian knows just how silly this is and even acknowledges it next issue.) But what of Evil Sonic and Rouge? How is their fight faring against Locke after the former got knocked aside? Well, Evil Sonic takes his chance to dramatically emerge from behind the emerald as the other two get ready to continue their fight…

Plot twist! How many people actually didn't know by now that Evil Sonic and Scourge were the same person? I'm guessing there had to be at least a few of you. You can actually already see Ian's new plans being put into action - it's very telling of his intentions when the very first issue he ever pens immediately makes a point of distinguishing a rather tired and boring character into a new and improved version of himself, with a unique name and new, visually distinct look. Apparently Kenders, who if you recall is the original creator of Evil Sonic, never liked this and continued to insist on referring to him as Evil Sonic, but screw that, Scourge is a much more interesting character and this was a change that sorely needed to be made.

Sonic Rush (Part One of Two)

Writer/Pencils: Tania Del Rio Colors: Ben Hunzeker

So unfortunately, Sonic Adventure 2 isn't the only case in the preboot of a partial adaption of a game being included without any actual ending. Sonic Rush, the game, introduces Blaze, a cat from an alternate dimension that is controlled by the Sol Emeralds rather than the Chaos Emeralds, and most of the plot revolves around the Sol Emeralds ending up in Sonic's dimension and her trying to recollect them to bring back to her own world. However, things are a bit different in the comics universe. In this story, Blaze comes to Sonic's dimension because, apparently, she's been having nonstop dreams about him, dreams which show her visions of Eggman threatening the Sol Emeralds and Sonic helping her protect them. She's frustrated that she would have to rely on anyone else to help her protect the emeralds at all, believing them to be her sole responsibility, but nonetheless she's tracked Sonic to Knothole. However, while deliberating her next move, a squad of swatbots - yes, ordinary ones, it's been a while since we've seen them rather than shadow-bots - happen upon her and decide that they should take her in for interrogation.

Yeah, I guess Blaze doesn't understand the dangers present in this universe yet, does she? An hour or so later, Rotor sends for Sonic, informing him that they caught the aftermath of Blaze's capture on their video surveillance. Neither of them know who she is, but they decide she can't be from their village, since she left several disabled swatbots behind, while most people in Knothole are noncombatants and those that aren't are accounted for elsewhere. Sonic rushes out to find their trail and tracks them to a nearby facility set up amidst the trees, and while he begins fighting his way in, the scientific robots in the building go about studying their new specimen.

Sorry, but why the hell would Eggman be looking to add some random Mobian to his team? He only likes robots anyway, and tends to either betray or enslave every living being that comes to him. Blaze suddenly awakens and becomes furious - not that she's been captured, mind you, but that they took off her coat while studying her. She must be really goddamn attached to her coat, because she starts absolutely trashing the place, exploding into flames and screaming so loudly that Sonic becomes genuinely worried about her wellbeing, rushing to where he last heard her. The door of the lab she's in is completely blasted off its hinges by the force of Blaze's explosions, but thankfully after this she seems to have found her coat, because the blasts subside and she appears in the doorway wearing it once again, staring down at an utterly shocked Sonic with a look of fiery fury (the literal flames coating her entire body probably help with the "fiery" bit). Uh… good luck dealing with that, buddy boy!