#its one of the few things i think archie did better than idw

[sonknuxadow]

The mandates were created to prevent an Archie 2.0 fiasco from happening.

im not really sure what the tone of this ask is supposed to be but i Know that ken penders and the particularly bad parts of archie sonic are the reason sega acts the way they do with the current comics and im not against sega having rules and being strict with the characters? ive read archie sonic ive seen what can happen when people are just allowed to do whatever they want with no input from sega and i do not want a repeat of that at all. the only rules that i know about and actually have a problem with are the ones that require shadow to be sonics asshole rival who has no friends and the one that says sonic isnt allowed to show much negative emotion

[blueberry-lemon]

Sonic x Shadow Generations Mini-Review

Not a big formal thing, but I have the toxic trait of being a Sonic fan so I feel like I need to get my thoughts down in writing...

The “Sonic Generations” Part

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and I know people have really varying opinions on favorite Sonic games, but it always surprises me when people list Generations as “one of the best ones.”

I remember playing through the whole thing on Xbox 360 and thinking it was alright. This time, I’m not even sure whether I’ll finish it.

It’s just not for me. The physics, handling, and level design just feel really clunky to me and I don’t enjoy playing it. The side-scrolling levels kind of make me motion sick. 

The idea of being able to equip different Passive Skills is cool (I loved that in Sonic and the Secret Rings) but I feel like they didn’t really get creative about what the skills would be.

I didn’t really like the cutscenes in the original and I don’t really like them now despite them doing some re-writing and re-dubbing. It just feels really stilted and stiff to me.

Either way, it’s great that it’s available on modern consoles.

The “Shadow Generations” Part

As people have said already, this is the reason to try the game.

Liked it much more than the Sonic half. I’m really happy with how it came together and the stuff that they’re experimenting with.

Right off the bat, the physics and handling feel much more Dreamcast/Gamecube-era Sonic than “Boost Era” Sonic. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but I have more interest seeing them try to get the old handling right. It’s funny that Shadow handles differently in this than Sonic does in the same game release. It’s like they still haven’t, after all these years, decided how they want these games to control.

When it comes to Shadow’s gameplay, guns and motorcycles are out and superpowers are in. I think it’s a great idea, from both a mechanic standpoint and branding standpoint. I like Shadow starting off with Chaos Emerald -ish powers and ending with weird Venom Symbiote powers.

The new mechanics are silly but are also the spice that really brings this all together. Being able to slow down time is a natural fit for these games. The weird lock-on charge shot thing from Star Fox is also interesting, as it gives you “something to do” while you’re running in a straight line or grinding on a rail.

The hub world is interesting but, honestly, not for me. It feels too convoluted to get from point A to be point B. I got lost a few times and also felt a bit motion sick from whipping the camera around.

Writing-wise…I love that it’s campy and silly and angsty. That said…I don’t know why, but Sonic game writing (even with writers like Ian Flynn taking turns on it) just does not land for me pretty much ever. I don’t know why, it just always feels so forced and unnatural.

I absolutely love the writing in the Sonic comics (IDW and late-Archie), and I think the writing in the cartoons and web shorts are also good. I don’t know why it just never seems to click in the games. Maybe something about having to be sandwiched in between gameplay, or having to be localized into multiple languages, makes it feel all sanded down?

I also think the game is trying to be a big recap or “start here” point for Shadow as a character, but they present it a little too confusingly for its own good.

So sadly, for me, the writing was a low point.

In terms of visuals I think it looks pretty good. I like it. I don’t really understand why they use certain textures on the characters though (like Shadow’s “fur” and Gerald’s nose skin??)

We are living in an age of Maria looking way way waaaaay better than she did with her Sonic Adventure 2 model.

Anyway, end of review! Pretty decent game.

Although I like Sonic as a media franchise, I very rarely can get into the games. They’re just really not for me, especially because of the physics, controls, and level design.

Even when I have a bit of fun with one, like I did with Shadow Generations, I’m not sure I can earnestly put it in the same tier as other 3D platformers.

That said, I hope this is a bright sign for the future. If they took another crack at the Shadow Generations gameplay I think it’d be really nice.

Sadly, Sonic Team has always had this bizarre habit of just giving up on stuff and not iterating on it, so we’ll see what happens.

[skaruresonic]

Man, if I had a nickel every time I've heard the word "disgusting" slung around in posts like this, I'd have enough to buy a smoothie.

Besides, Mom said it was my turn on the brain cell today. Quit hogging all the hivemind juice, guys.

---

But i want y'all to put this into perspective, his work is LEAGUES above the shit we've gotten for the past 10 years.

Why do you act like that's an objective fact? What if someone disagrees with your assessment? What if someone finds it worse than the "shit we've gotten for the past 10 years"? Are you going to "nuh-uh" them into submission?

People are not going to agree with things you'd consider universal truths. That's okay.

---

All of these games' stories were either mid to dogshit, at least people can somewhat agree that yeah, Frontiers is better than them. Is the story perfect? No, OF COURSE NOT!

So like, how much am I allowed to complain? Is it acceptable if I attribute it to Kishimoto instead? Because bad writing is bad writing.

My problems with Frontiers stem from overall gripes with story, characterization, pace, art direction, voice acting, marketing, tell don't show, reference overload, and reasons for existing, to name a few things.

Of that list, Flynn's involvement is only a portion, a very small portion at that. It's symptomatic of a larger problem, but not the only one.

---

He helped write Frontiers, Archie comics, IDW which has some cool stuff in it, Shadow Generations AND Dark Beginnings. This man has a better track record and actually LIKES THE SOURCE MATERIAL HE WRITES!!!!!!!!!

>>don't like Frontiers >>slowly grew to dislike Archie as I read more >>same for IDW - I literally only read it when I'm so bored that it has to be better than watching paint dry. it brings me exactly 0 enjoyment as a piece of media >>haven't played SxS Gens but not happy with the few glimpses I have seen so far >>Dark Beginnings is cool mostly because I have my Shadria ship goggles strapped on too tight, but even that is not exempt from its moments of :L ...I only like about maybe one out of those five examples you listed, and even that like was fueled by me being a shipper while ignoring other problems. Much peak, many wow.

Anyway, he likes Archie. His actual thoughts on the games seem far less enthusiastic, especially given how often he denigrates games characters (Amy is "all over the place," Eggman "never, ever has a solid plan," he's frustrated that Shadow "isn't a conversationalist"); he's referred to Archie as the "sacred texts" while saying he's "made an effort" to track down and play as many Sonic games as he can, as if the latter is a chore and the former is a passion.

Of course he's not going to say he thinks the games are dumb but that doesn't mean the underlying insinuation that he thinks they need to be improved isn't there. It'd just be bad PR to say that about stuff you're working on.

---

YOU WANT HIM AROUND!! IF SEGA LISTENS TO SOME OF YOU AND HIRES SOME RANDOM WRITER IT'S GONNA BE YOUR FAULT AND YOU'RE GONNA START MISSING HIM! 100000%

if Sega listened to me, we'd have the Advance games ported to the Switch by now :v

Okay... but, and I say this not to be combative, what if I don't? What if I want somebody else to take a crack at it because at this point it sounds like he's really tired of writing for the franchise, and in some cases warping canon to fit his fanon?

Like, you guys are assuming whoever takes the reins next will be Pontaff-tier disasters when that's just not a given. Maybe they will be worse, or maybe they will be better, or maybe they will present a different set of plus and minuses just like every other writer. Sometimes, it can be good to have new blood working on the IP because they can offer fresh perspectives not colored by their own biases as a fan.

Did Pontaff mess up various characters? Depends on who you ask. Their Eggman was pretty good, though. They weren't perfect, but at least they didn't push to straight-up alter established canon because they liked their fanon better.

---

Ian Flynn is a fucking human being that has a developing craft and he can take criticism to improve his work,

You speak of him as if he's a fanfic writer posting to AO3 for free and not a professional being paid cash money for his work.

Also, I know he's a human being. Not sure what you're trying to imply here, but it's not like I've ever talked to the guy since I've got a staunch no-contact policy with IDW staff. Meaning he shouldn't be looking at my blog for criticism anyhow.

---

he is NOT on the same fucking tier as the previous game writers and localizers.

Why is it that his authority is so selective that his word on the series is to be taken as practically as good as ST's, but when it comes to his mistakes, he's Just a Guy(tm) we shouldn't criticize?

Plus, he's been writing for the series in some capacity for close to 20 years at this point, and he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. You'd think he'd understand that Shadow isn't a conversationalist by now.

The amount of hate Ian Flynn gets in the Sonic community due to some YouTubers criticizing his work, is actually fucking psychotic and kind of disgusting to be honest. You guys can be a real hive mind sometimes.

Now look, is his work perfect? No, no writer is PERFECT! NOTHING CAN BE PERFECT! Are some of the callbacks forced? YES! MHM! AGREED!

But i want y'all to put this into perspective, his work is LEAGUES above the shit we've gotten for the past 10 years. Colours is mid, Generations is bleh, Lost World SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Forces was LAUGHABLE!!! All of these games' stories were either mid to dogshit, at least people can somewhat agree that yeah, Frontiers is better than them. Is the story perfect? No, OF COURSE NOT! Ian Flynn is a fucking human being that has a developing craft and he can take criticism to improve his work, he is NOT on the same fucking tier as the previous game writers and localizers.

He helped write Frontiers, Archie comics, IDW which has some cool stuff in it, Shadow Generations AND Dark Beginnings. This man has a better track record and actually LIKES THE SOURCE MATERIAL HE WRITES!!!!!!!!!

YOU WANT HIM AROUND!! IF SEGA LISTENS TO SOME OF YOU AND HIRES SOME RANDOM WRITER IT'S GONNA BE YOUR FAULT AND YOU'RE GONNA START MISSING HIM! 100000%

GOODNESS! Get it together Sonic community, fucking hell.

[crusherthedoctor]

Can you list anything you unironically like in the games (and cartoons and comics) that you don't like?

I won't bother mentioning music, since that goes without saying and is to be expected for a Sonic game... unless you're Chronicles.

Sonic Adventure 2 (mixed gameplay-wise, annoying story-wise) - While I prefer Sonic's SA1 levels for a number of reasons, I still think his and Shadow's gameplay in SA2 is fun on its own merit. I also don't mind the treasure hunting gameplay returning or how big the levels are this time around, since Knuckles and Rouge are still fast and not '06 levels of slow. It's mainly the gimped radar that creates the unfortunate domino effect of making them a problem.

- Introduced Rouge, one of my favourite characters for how playful she is and how she's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than you'd expect.

- Some genuinely good scenes, like Eggman's trap on the A.R.K and Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter.

- Had some good ideas going for it, like the Pyramid Base and the Biolizard as a scientific monster instead of an ancient one.

- Despite my thoughts on the backstory itself (or rather, its execution), Shadow has enough depth and subtle qualities and occasional unintended hilarity to stand out from the typical dark rival characters you see in media.

- The Last Scene's music in particular is one of my favourite cutscene tracks in the series.

Sonic Heroes (mixed gameplay-wise, loathed story-wise) - The gameplay is fun when you're not being screwed over by repetitive combat, overly long levels and/or ice physics.

- Boasts some of the most consistently Genesis-worthy environments in the 3D games, up there with SA1's and Colours'.

- The in-game dialogue that isn't the same tutorial drivel repeated ad nauseam can be interesting, funny, etc.

- Reintroduced the Chaotix, which provided me with another character I quite like in the form of Vector.

- Bringing Metal Sonic back in full force and front and center in the plot after a long absence (not counting cameos and the like) is a perfectly fine idea. Just... not like this.

Sonic Battle (decent yet repetitive gameplay, mixed story-wise) - Emerl's arc is compelling, and it earns the emotional weight of having to put him down at the end.

- While some characters are iffy (read: Amy), other characters are extremely well-handled. Shadow is probably the prime example.

- Gamma's belly dance healing animation is fucking hilarious.

- When I was young, and the game was first announced, I was really excited about being able to play as Chaos. This proved to be my downfall when it turned out he was arguably one of the worst characters in the game due to being slower than me during the writing process, but I still recall that excitement fondly.

Shadow the Hedgehog (comedy classic) - The sheer amount of legendary stupidity this game has going for it makes it practically impossible to actually hate. It helps that it's not quite as white-knighted on the same level as '06... usually. You know you're in for a unique experience when you hear a gunshot every time you click something in the menu.

- By extension, Black Doom never gained an unironic fanbase like Mephiles/Scourge/Eggman Nega did, which means I'm a lot more willing to take Doom's dumbass brand of villainy in stride. He even has a unique design... a terrible one that rips off Wizeman granted, but alas, even that is a step-up from Fridge Shadow and Bumblebee Eggman.

- Despite being... well, Shadow the Hedgehog, some of the environments would fit right in with any other Sonic game, like with Circus Park, Lava Shelter, and Digital Circuit. Even the Black Comet levels look pretty cool.

- This game understands amnesia better than IDW does.

Sonic '06 (what do you think?) - The obvious one: Shadow's character was handled pretty well, even if it came at the cost of everyone else being a dummy and being forced to interact with Mephiles.

- Like SA2, there are some good moments, like the Last Story ending sequence with Sonic and Elise.

- In the greatest form of irony ever, I like Solaris as a concept and design(s), and its backstory has potential to serve as a parallel with Chaos without being a complete ripoff. Iblis sucks, Mephiles sucks, but I'm fine with Solaris.

- Introduced legendary characters like Sonic Man, Pele the Beloved Dog, Hatsun the Pigeon, and Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove.

The Rivals duology (apathetic outside of Nega-related grumbling) - There were some cool zone ideas in both games that were sadly let down by the restrictive and limiting gameplay. I particularly like Colosseum Highway for thus far being the only full-on Roman level in the series instead of merely having a couple minor hints of Roman, and Meteor Base for the unique scenario of the space station being built into an asteroid. These level concepts and others deserve a second chance IMO. (At least Frontier Canyon got a second chance in the form of Mirage Saloon, amirite?)

- Ifrit has a better design than Iblis. Not saying it's amazing, but the Firebird motif it has going on is a lot more interesting for a fire monster than the Not-Chaos schtick they had with Iblis.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (a very frustrating gaming experience) - Erazor Djinn, A.K.A. Qui-Gon Djinn, A.K.A. Dr. N. Djinn, A.K.A. I'll Take It On The Djinn, A.K.A. Not From The Hairs On My Djinny Djinn Djinn, is one of the best villains not associated with Eggman in the series. He's a Mephiles-type character done right, and there's actual weight and reason to his actions, however sinister or petty.

- I don't have strong opinions either way on Shahra as a character, but the Sonic/Shahra friendship is sweet and well-handled.

- The ending is one of Sonic's greatest moments. The sheer contrast between how ruthlessly he deals with Erazor and how comforting he is towards Shahra speaks volumes... Still gonna make fun of the mountain of handkerchiefs though. (Before anyone lectures me, I understand the significance of it and can even appreciate it from that angle... doesn't mean I'm not allowed to poke fun at it. :P)

- Another game with some redeeming environments. I love the aesthetic of Night Palace, and Sand Oasis looks gorgeous too.

Sonic Chronicles (my personal least favourite game in the series) - Uh...

- Um...

- Er...

- I like Shade's design?

Sonic Unleashed (overrated game and story IMO) - The obvious two: the opening sequence and the Egg Dragoon fight deserve all the praise they get.

- Seeing Eggmanland come to life was an impressive moment to be sure. While part of me does feel it didn't quite measure up to what I had in mind (ironically, the Interstellar Amusement Park ended up being closer to what I had in mind), it still looks badass and works well for what it is. I also don't mind the idea of it being a one-level gauntlet... key word being idea.

- Obviously, the game looks great. Not a fan of the real world focus (real world inspiration is fine, but copy-pasting the real world and shoving loops in it is just unimaginative), but it can't be denied that the environments look good.

- This game pulled off dialogue options a lot better than Chronicles did, since they didn't rely on making Sonic OoC.

Sonic and the Black Knight (just kind of boring all around) - Despite my gripes with the story (Merlina wasn't nearly as fleshed out as her unique anti-villain status deserved, which ends up severely undermining the ambition of the plot in more ways than one, and the other characters go from being useless yes men for King Arthur to being useless yes men for Sonic), I will admit it provides interesting insight into Sonic's character.

- Like '06 and Secret Rings, the ending is very nice... well, aside from Amy being an unreasonable bitch ala Sonic X at the very end.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (apathetic) - The admittedly few new concepts sprinkled within had promise. They may not have been as fleshed out as they could have been, but level concepts like Sylvania Castle and White Park, bosses like Egg Serpentleaf and the Egg Heart, and story beats like the Death Egg mk.II being powered by Little Planet, all could have been brilliant had they been better executed.

SatAM (apathetic outside of SatAM Robotnik-related grumbling) - I'm not a fan of the environments on the whole due to them looking too bland or samey, but there are some exceptions that look pleasant or interesting, like the Void.

Sonic Underground (apathetic) - The character designs make me feel better about myself.

- Does "large quantities of unintentional meme material" count as a positive?

Sonic X (mostly apathetic outside of Eggman's handling) - Helen was a better human character and audience surrogate in her one focus episode than Chris was throughout his entire runtime.

- Actually, most of the human characters not named Chris were legitimately likable. Including everyone in Chris' own family not named Chris. Hilarious.

- Despite arguably having the most Chris in it, I actually don't mind the first season that much, partly due to slight nostalgia from seeing it on TV when it was new, but mostly because Eggman actually acted like a villain for the most part, and certain other characters weren't quite as flanderized yet. It's season 2 and onwards where things started going off the rails IMO. (Incidentally, Helen's episode was part of season 1...)

The Boom franchise (apathetic) - Along with Chronicles, the games provide yet more proof that just because someone isn't SEGA/Sonic Team, that doesn't mean they're automatically more qualified to handle the series.

- The show had some good episodes here and there, and Tails' characterization was probably the most consistently on-point out of the cast.

- Despite not exactly being favourite portrayals for either character, even I'll admit that many of Knuckles and Eggman's lines in the show on their own were genuinely funny.

Archie Sonic (pre-reboot is mostly terrible, post-reboot is mostly... bland) - Whenever I doubt myself as a writer, I think back to Ken Penders, and suddenly I'm filled with a lot more confidence.

Sonic the Comic (apathetic) - Fleetway isn't a comic I tend to recall much of aside from how much of a loathesome cunt Sonic is, but IIRC, Robotnik's portrayal is pretty good. Different, but good.

IDW Sonic (stop pissing me off, comic) - Putting their handling aside (and being too obviously "inspired" by MGS in the latter's case), Tangle and Whisper are good characters IMO.

- Same goes for Starline, before he was killed off-screen and replaced with Toothpaste Snively.

- Execution aside (noticing a pattern?), the zombot virus was a fine concept on its own and an interesting new scheme for Eggman.

- I get to remind myself that I've never drawn scat edits and posted them publicly on Twitter.

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 2

In large portions of every fandom, it looks like it prevails the idea that you can only take one of two positions: praising the story in every respect, including both the ideas themselves and their execution by the writers, or admitting not to like the story and not to praise any element of it at all. I think my ideas regarding the Archie-Sonic comics and the Sonic franchise in general cannot be pigeonholed into either of these two extremes.

More below the "keep reading" cut.

I loved all the world-building in Archie-Sonic, the elements the comic introduced, their many characters and the potential to tell stories about them; I also really liked much of the art and personal styles of several artists Archie-Sonic has had throughout its history, with very few exceptions (and such exceptions include Ron Lim, of course). That's why, of all the Sonic continuities, I often use the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic comic as the primary source for world-building elements and story ideas.

What really makes me feel bad about that comic, what motivates most of my criticism, is the ideas’ execution by the main writers, as well as aspects that I think are more linked to each writer as a person, the unique way in which each of them has written their stories.

Firstly, Michael Gallagher: the writer for the first few dozen issues of the comic had a terrible sense of humour, and this hurt the comic hugely since those first issues were fundamentally based on that low-quality comedy style. The characterization of the entire cast also suffered greatly from this; in Sally's case, something quite ironic happened too: Gallagher portrayed her as bossy, annoying, temperamental, usually bickering with Sonic, and now that's also how Sally is seen by many fans of the videogames’ continuity (at best). Other than this, not much more could be said about him.

Karl Bollers wrote quite decent stories with some nice comedy, with “Return to Angel Island” being his best work, one of the best stories in the entire comic and perhaps even one of the best in the franchise; but Bollers’s work was "torpedoed" by Ken Penders and then-editor Justin Gabrie, which ruined the stories’ final versions sometimes or led to elements introduced by Bollers being "retconned" and overwritten by whatever Penders smoked and decided to do when taking over. The characterization of Fiona Fox is one of the main examples, with Bollers's Fiona being a quite under-utilized character but with a great potential that would later be wasted by both Penders and Ian Flynn. Another similar case was Sally breaking up with Sonic: Bollers tried to give context to such a drastic decision by Sally and show how she was the one who was suffering the most at that time and also that both she and Sonic were partially right, but Penders and Gabrie didn't let Bollers develop this subplot properly and all we had was a quite infamous scene that unfairly made Sally one of the most hated characters. It’s also known of several plans Bollers had for future stories, and one of them was Antoine being corrupted by the Source of All and turning into a villain; this had the potential to be a good story by subverting the concept of the Source of All and making it an actual threat, but on the other hand, it’d have meant resorting once again to the resource of "this character isn’t doing anything, let's make them evil", something quite disappointing, which later would have disastrous results when Flynn did the same with Fiona a few years later. However, these plans of Bollers were just ideas, and the quality of a story created from them still depends a lot on execution. In the end, I can't say anything about how good or bad Bollers was as a writer, simply because I have no way of knowing what his stories would have been like if he had been given more freedom and had stayed as the writer longer.

There were two writers who influenced Archie-Sonic comics far more than any other writer in its history: Penders and Flynn. The first of them was a retarded pervert with an overly inflated and fragile ego. He became obsessed with the primitive, toxic ideal of "family" North-Americans have. He wrote nonsensical, contradictory stories, having already decided the end down to the last detail long before even thinking about how the story would come to that end (I also made this specific mistake a few times when I was just starting to write fanfiction, I must admit). He increased Fiona's age in order to be able to pair her with the Don Juan that Sonic had become, which also ruined Fiona's characterization forever. The issues 150s -right before being replaced by Flynn- were the worst part of Penders’s run, as Bollers was no longer there to put a stop to his madness in any way, and it was at this time when there was the most egregious case of Penders pouring into the comic his worst perversions and retarded ideas: he hinted at a sex scene in one of the most infamous cases in the history of the entire Sonic franchise, although it wasn’t infamous for the implied sex per se but rather because what happened was technically a rape by deception; to add insult to injury, the writer implicitly blamed the victim some years later when asked about it on Twitter.

I could go on talking about “Ken Perverts”, but I think that's not necessary and would be a waste of time since, as everyone here already knows, he's been the laughingstock of the entire Sonic franchise for years; @ponett even has a whole secondary blog, @thankskenpenders, mainly dedicated to this. On the other hand, there’s still another writer who has also contributed a lot and also made huge mistakes but is not criticized in the least by almost anyone, simply because he was better than Penders.

Ian Flynn usually reduced the characters to slightly oversimplified portrayals, similar to the personalities of the characters in the most recent videogames. Under his pen, Sonic was more sympathetic but his words sometimes sounded too empty and shallow, his apologies for past mistakes didn’t lead to genuine changes on his part, and sometimes he even seemed plain insensitive to all the tragedies happening around him, especially at the Mecha Sally Arc (I nickname Ian Flynn’s Sonic "Plastic Smile" for this). Admittedly, this had already happened several times with previous writers (Penders portraying Sonic as a Don Juan, as I already mentioned), and this is why I think the original Sonic from Sonic SatAM was always better for feeling more "genuine", less "empty", and more heroic and likeable as a result. Perhaps the only ones to escape the oversimplified portrayal have been Shadow and E-123 Omega, whose characterizations in Archie-Sonic were the best in the whole franchise.

Besides, Flynn had strong favouritism for Amy Rose, which only made things worse because this Amy was much more similar to the one in the videogames from Sonic Heroes onwards. Anyway, this also happened with previous writers, like when Amy wished to be younger at the cost of a chance to save Sally's mother and no one ever berated her for it.

Let’s look at the villains. Unlike the typical Eggman from the videogames, with his follies, eccentricities and other absurd aspects, the Robotnik “inherited” by the comic from Sonic SatAM was explicitly a genocidal bastard and crueller while at the same time being sane enough to realize everything he was doing (@robotnik-mun already spoke in detail about this once); however, Flynn tried to combine the two characters into the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic Eggman, and the result created some severe problems with the stories’ tone. Something derived from this was how Sonic let Eggman live and even felt sorry for his fall into madness, in addition to treating him as if they were the Sonic and Eggman from the videogames, Sonic X or Sonic Boom; it’s worth remembering this Eggman technically is a sort of reincarnation of the SatAM Robotnik (his exact nature is quite complicated and includes parallel universes, but yes, he’s supposed to be exactly the same as the SatAM Robotnik, with memories and everything) and this Sonic is supposed to have fought a bloody decade-long guerilla war against him just like his SatAM counterpart.

Scourge was turned into a massive Mary-Sue who achieved easy victories, as subtle as a huge neon sign saying "the bad guys win"; he was also an abusive manipulator towards Fiona Fox, and Flynn was unable to show that properly for fear of making his pet look no longer cool, which makes you wonder how alike Flynn and Penders might actually be in some ways. To clearly understand the horrible damage this has caused: it not only created a generation of young Sonic fans -mostly boys from the USA- who romanticize abuse either consciously or unconsciously, but also there are even women -including scholars, committed feminists and transgender people who are also activists for social justice- who either sympathize with Scourge or think Fiona made a right, wise, rational or informed decision by joining him in the story (I’ll not give names of those women, I’m not really eager to get into heated fallacious discussions about “the true meaning of Feminism”); to top it off, among the writers who started working with Ian Flynn either on IDW-Sonic or the last years of Archie-Sonic, there’s at least one person who got the job of writing official Sonic comics after gaining quite a bit of fame with a fan-comic where they used the pairing of Scourge & Fiona to inspire its readers to feel sorry... for Scourge. And speaking of Fiona specifically: the subplot of her career as a villain was ill-conceived, was built by using as a cornerstone the A-story of Issue #150 (that quite infamous and widely known story written by Penders where Scourge may or may not have raped Bunnie by deception), and was also seemingly "abandoned" as Fiona ended up merely being Scourge's new abuse victim girlfriend and her status as a traitor didn’t even have a significant emotional effect on the Freedom Fighters.

Flynn also followed something like a pattern of taking tropes from famous works and then using them when writing the comic but not actually understanding why those tropes had worked in the first place. Perhaps the prime example of this was Scourge giving Sonic the Joker's "One Bad Day" speech: it almost felt a bit like giving the same speech to the Batman of Batman vs. Superman, as Sonic had already had a whole "bad decade" and was still a hero despite it; also, Sonic's answer to that speech (telling Scourge it only takes a tiny bit of selflessness and decency for him to be a good person) wasn’t that great, not at all compared to the mildly masterful answer Batman had originally given to the Joker in The Killing Joke, and it even made Sonic look more like a bad judge of character.

Lastly, the entire Mecha Sally Arc was poorly planned, had some contradictions with itself and with previous stories, was stretched through dozens of comic issues no matter if that felt forced, and the main events and plot twists throughout the story arc were heavily based on shock-value without giving any substance to this or making it a bit more sense when putting it under scrutiny; meanwhile, Flynn always seemed to have quite a hard time when writing long story arcs, so these long stories looked like he was trying and outright failing to imitate Toriyama (someone quite known for putting together stories ad-lib according to what seemed most convenient at the time).

Despite this, it looks like those Sonic fans who are still interested in material outside of the videogames will keep buying and reading whatever Ian Flynn or one of his colleagues writes, simply because they’re better than Penders... even though it's been 15 years since Penders wrote something official about Sonic. Seriously, we should have gotten over it by now, instead of continuing to compare all material in the franchise with Penders's work, which sets the bar too low for any official content creator. Now that I think about it, Penders's work is to the North-American Sonic canon what Sonic 2006 is to the videogames: people can criticize the latest games all they want, and rightfully so, but if someone even casually mentions Sonic 2006, any Sonic game from 2010 onwards instantly becomes a masterpiece just for being marginally better than Sonic 2006; the same happens between Penders's work on pre-reboot Archie-Sonic and any other North-American Sonic comic written by Flynn after Penders left.

Right now it looks like it's also forbidden to criticize Flynn as a writer at all just because he's much nicer in his personal life and engages with fans more directly through his podcasts, or because Flynn is truly progressive while Penders claimed to be progressive and a feminist and was affiliated with the USA Democrats but his work showed how misogynistic, perverted, retarded, reactionary and downright sick he was. Also, now saying something about Flynn other than total blind admiration for him and his work, even asking for the Freedom Fighters to return in the IDW comics, has become synonymous with agreeing with those assholes who cry "Rally4Sally" or "Udon4Sonic" on Twitter: "nostalgic" fans of SatAM and Penders's work on Archie, in their 40s or 50s, deeply conservative and absurdly paranoid, who claim that those new inclusive cartoons such as Steven Universe or She-Ra "are ruining their childhood", are mad at Flynn just because he hinted Sally and Nicole may be a lesbian couple (and in a rather platonic way, not even romantic in the traditional sense), and try to justify their own warped ideas and fantasies about SatAM by ignoring any “liberal” political messages SatAM may have had at the subtext level.

[robotnik-mun]

Robotnik Art Historia- Final: Fade to Flynn

Would you believe me if I told you that when I first wrote that up I wasn’t planning for the alliteration? True story! 

Anyway, welcome on and all to the final installation of the Robotnik Art Historia! Well folks it’s been a fun ride, but all good things must come to an end. In this final segment we take a look at the scant few appearances that ol eggbelly had during the Flynn Era of the Archie book- a time where one author ruled the roost of the book, where the Sonic comic would expand in a way unprecedented with previous eras and where, most astoundingly, ACTUAL artistic standards were met and kept consistent. It would also be a time of great upheaval- previous writers had left a trainwreck in their wake, and much of Flynn’s time would be spent untying the knot that was the continuity while moving several longstanding plots forward, all the while working to more closely align the books to the games... until events outside his control would force things to be closer to the games than ever before as the continuity was rebooted. 

This was the time when the old Robotnik’s relevance to things would fade almost entirely, but still he would still make a scant few appearances. This would be the last era in which this design and interpretation of the Eggman would be used, the final chapter in a story that was a lot longer than anyone could have anticipated. The Robotniks here don’t quite have the same level of wide variety as the others in the past did- thanks to the more stringent rules of quality and consistency, Robotnik is more uniform here than ever before. That being said, while the variety might have taken a hit, the quality of these Robotniks cannot be denied, and it is nice to know that the doc’s last hurrah was done by such skilled artists as these. 

25. Tracey Yardley

Many great comic writers tend to have an artist to help complement them and make their work truly iconic- Stan Lee had Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont had John Byrne, and Ian Flynn had Tracey Yardley. Coming in like a hurricane, Yardley quickly established himself as the primary artist for the book during this time, to much acclaim, with a toony, expressive style that none the less managed to gel nicely with the in-house Sonic Style. He had few opportunities to draw the Big Round Guy, and the first time was... not all that great, essentially being Eggman’s head stuck on a bigger balloon body. However, his later take on the guy- done for the History of Mobius segments that would be made for the Super Special Magazines showed VAST improvements, creating an appropriately massive and menacing Robotnik. Once again- so very frustrated that this couldn’t be showcased in a story proper. Story of my life. 

26. Renae De Liz

Renae De Liz had only two issues to her name, but had a much more extensive career outside of Archie, including working on DC’s Legend of Wonder Woman book and the comic adaptation of The Last Unicorn. She would only depict Robotnik once, in two panels of a flashback sequence detailing how the Iron Queen came to work for Robotnik, but as luck would have it, she did a good job- that one panel in particular is one of my favorites, managing to capture the essence of Julian juuust right. By now you know the song and dance- ‘would have liked to see more’. That’s the mantra by this point. 

27. Ben Bates

Another fan favorite, Ben Bates was in the eyes of many the absolute master of the ‘Sonic Style’, managing to fit anyone and everyone into it during his time on the Sonic book. His career was hardly limited to Sonic though- he also did work on the Megaman series, and the New Crusaders book (both of which were written by Flynn), and outside of Archie worked extensively in IDW’s Ninja Turtle books. Unlike most during this time, he got to draw an actual story featuring the dock- as you can see, his drawing is practically a perfect replica of Robotnik’s design as depicted in SatAM, a sweet surprise for fans such as myself who missed the old doc’s design (all five of us). This would mark the last time this model of Robotnik would feature as a character in any story of the book, even if it was only in the form of an extended flashback. 

28. Jon Grey 

Ah, now this is a complicated example! See, Jon Grey is a much beloved fanartist, and didn’t get his start in the Flynn era- he was part of the same wave of fanartists who came onto the book back in early-to-mid 2000s that gave us Jay Axer and Dawn Best, bringing his toony and ultra-expressive style into the book, most notably being the main artist for the acclaimed Return to Angel Island arc and being the designer of Dr. Finitevus. I call this a complex example because technically, he only drew Robotnik once for the books, in a bit of promotional art for the first Sonic Digest book. However, I have witnessed his work on the guy in fanart- while his style might be better suited for stuff like Adventures, all the same his able to appropriately convey all the right things in Julian, with a superb attention to detail. 

29. Evan Stanley 

Another fanartist turned pro, Stanley first came to fan attention for her popular fancomic “Ghosts of the Future”, demonstrating a keen ability to depict Sonic characters in a somewhat more realistic fashion without detracting from the Sonic Style or general tooniness expected from the Sonic series. The bulk of her work being in the Post-Reboot continuity, she is noteworthy for her redesign of Von Schlemmer, her creation of the character Gold the Tenrec and for establishing the precise kind of future that Silver that came from. She is also the very last person to draw Robotnik in the Archie Sonic comic, in a flashback scene involving Sonic’s faded memories of the old continuity (where notably, like many other times, his nose is a tad on the big side). This is noteworthy as it will not only be the last time this design of Robotnik would feature in the book, but it is extremely likely that this is the very last time that the SatAM model of Robotnik will ever be utilized in anything ever again, marking this as the final depiction of the design. In his Warlord uniform no less. 

And with that, this artistic retrospective of Robotnik comes to a close. What else can be said? I did all this to celebrate the sheer variety of the comics over the ages and to celebrate one of my favorite characters in the books while doing so, because much like the overall character of Dr. Eggman/Robotnik in general with regards to the history of the franchise, he has had the most variation in his depictions within the book, and I felt that was something worth looking over and celebrating. Because while the artwork wasn’t always good and it was amazing the kind of sloppiness that was allowed in the old days, there’s something kind of charming about the fact that once upon a time, there could be as much visual interpretation in the book as there was then. It is ultimately for the best that Archie’s art got its act together before its untimely cancellation, to be sure, but at the same time I do miss the level of creativity that could be demonstrated in the old days, even if it didn’t always end well.

And so, we bring this series to an end. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I did making it, and I hope I’ve given you something to think about at least!

[pixelgrotto]

RIP Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog comic (1992-2017)  After 25 years and nearly 300 issues, Archie’s long-running Sonic the Hedgehog comic was officially cancelled earlier this week. The writing’s been on the wall for a while now, since the comic went on a forced hiatus several months ago and none of the creators were allowed to publicly discuss it due to ongoing negotiations between Archie and Sega. But this Thursday, the book’s final fate was declared, and it looks like the Freedom Fighters - who once announced that they could handle anything - couldn’t quite beat the threat of cancellation. A lot of people dunk on the Archie Sonic comic for being overly convoluted, going through some pretty low points or appealing primarily to furries, and all of these things are kinda true, except for maybe the furry one. But warts and all, Archie Sonic is a glorious beast of monstrously complex proportions. First of all, let the fact that Sonic holds the record for having the longest-running North American comic for a licensed character sink in. Seriously, this series ran from 1992 to 2017 and nearly reached 300 freaking issues. In a time when most comics from Marvel and DC can barely reach double digits before either being renumbered to generate a temporary boost in sales or flat-out cancelled, Sonic the Hedgehog kept chugging along, stealthily reinventing itself from its original status as a slapdash funny book to an ongoing saga that manifested lore so deep that it warranted the release of an entire encyclopedia to help people keep everything straight. 

What’s even more interesting is that Archie Sonic became the one place where you could still see characters carried over from the DiC Saturday morning Sonic cartoon show, which was produced in 1993. The show, affectionately dubbed SatAM by everyone who watched it back in the day, frankly doesn’t hold up that well and is a good example of nostalgia goggles at work. It had an incredible theme song, though (SONIC! HE CAN REALLY MOVE! SONIC! HE’S GOT AN ATTITUDE! SONIC! HE’S THE FAAAASTEST THING ALIVE), and the show did do an admirable job of developing a backstory for a mascot who, at the time, had no characterization other than the fact that he was fast and collected rings. SatAM fixed this by putting Sonic in the surprisingly dark world of Mobius, a place ruled by Dr. Robotnik, a dictator who had “roboticized” the population by turning them into droids. It also gave the hedgepig a variety of characters to play off of, like Princess Sally, Antoine the cowardly French fox, Bunnie the half-roboticized rabbit and Rotor the walrus. Along with Tails, this lot was collectively referred to as the Knothole Freedom Fighters.  Archie Sonic got its start telling stories with the Freedom Fighters while they were still on air, and even after the show was cancelled, the comic continued using them, essentially turning itself into season three of the cartoon. As the decades passed, the SatAM characters and story threads evolved and changed in wondrously unexpected ways - Sonic and Sally fell in love, the original Dr. Robotnik was killed and replaced with a robotic version of himself from an alternate dimension, Bunnie and Antoine got married and Mobius was revealed to be a future version of Earth that was attacked by the Xorda, aliens who had unleashed gene bombs on the planet, mutating the wildlife into anthropomorphic animals. (This was my goddamn favorite batshit crazy bit of Sonic comic lore ever.) Furthermore, the comic increasingly began introducing more elements from the actual Sonic video games, which had finally developed deeper stories of their own thanks to the advancement of technology. So you had stuff like Sonic and the Freedom Fighters teaming up to fight Perfect Chaos and meeting Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat. It was an unusual, unique combination of Western and Eastern concepts melding together in one pictorial arena, and it made Archie Sonic feel special. 

Speaking of the games, the book was also special because it damn well carried Sonic’s presence in North America during the years when the blue guy wasn’t starring in many video games (the Sega Saturn era) and couldn’t star in any decent video games (the Sonic ‘06 era). Even when Sega was releasing shovelware that damaged the brand, Archie Sonic kept pumping out issues, and its sheer determination to keep going won it legions of dedicated fans. Many of these people, including myself, got stuck on the comic at a young age and stayed long-term. I personally started picking up issues in 1994 or 1995, so basically only three or so years after the book was out. I think I was seven years old. A few years later, I got a subscription and had the comic delivered to my mailbox every month. (I still remember my first issue - it was number 41, when Sonic, Sally and that douchebag skunk Geoffrey St. John went to the Zone of Silence to rescue King Acorn.) The subscription continued until I was in college, and only ended around my junior year, when I forgot to renew it because I was too busy applying to go abroad after graduation. 

In short, I subscribed to a periodical about a damn blue hedgehog for a large majority of my life. Even when I stopped regularly reading around issue 180, I always kept abreast of the book’s developments (like that crossover with MEGAMAN!) and told myself that I’d eventually catch up on the stories I missed, likely in the excellent Sonic Select and Sonic Archives trade paperbacks that Archie was publishing. And there were tons of others like me. The Archie Sonic community is such a vibrant one, filled with 90s kids who grew up on this book and even older folks like the crazy Dan Drazen, a 60-something librarian who wrote the most detailed (and overly picky) online reviews of every issue. Many of these fans went on to work for the comic at one point or another, like the incredible Dawn Best and fan favorite Ian Flynn, who swooped in as a writer in the late 2000s and saved the book when it was suffering from a spell of plodding stories. For a lot of us, Archie Sonic was the preferred Sonic canon, and we got pissed when Sega pulled awful jump the shark moments outta their butts - like having Sonic hook up with human princesses in his broken 2006 game - when there was a wealth of solid lore in this weird little comic coming out in America that they always seemed content to ignore.

In fact, the only time Sega really paid close attention to the book was when Ken Penders launched a lawsuit against it, which may have been a contributor to its eventual cancellation. People better than me have already scripted lengthy writeups about Mr. Penders, and I encourage you to read this extremely in-depth take on the whole fiasco, which is a bizarre tale of copyright arguments and delusions of grandeur worthy of any John Grisham novel. But in a nutshell, Ken was a former writer who helped guide Archie Sonic away from simple gag strips and into the realm of full-on adventure tales. His control over the book was major until he was fired, and a few years later, he went on a vehement quest to prove that he owned all characters he had created while working for Archie, including series mainstays like Julie-Su, Knuckles the Echidna’s girlfriend. He ended up suing Archie multiple times and won on legal loopholes, which prompted him to start attacking the book’s current team while declaring that a buttload of barely-related story concepts were his. He also tried suing Sega when Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood came out, claiming that the enemies in the game were too similar to ones he had whipped up. Archie eventually had to come up with a plot device to kill off (trap in another dimension, really) all of the characters he had created during his tenure, and eventually they instituted a full reboot to wipe continuity clean and remove all traces of the lawsuit from history. Unfortunately, the legal issues did some pretty heavy damage to Archie’s relationship with Sega, who were reportedly pissed that the American comic company had let things get so screwed up. And I don’t blame them. To the Sonic fan community, Ken Penders is largely loathed as a megalomaniac who sabotaged a long-running comic for personal gain. But he doesn’t deserve all of the blame, and he did put out some good stories in the day before going bonkers. Archie’s also at fault, both due to their not-so-great freelancer deals as well as their incompetence at handling lawsuits. (At one point the company even fired their entire legal team and hired new attorneys, yeesh.) In recent years, Archie also seems to be terrible at handling their finances, even though they’re currently spearheading Riverdale, a successful show on the CW that’s made all of their high school characters into hot, emo Millennials. (I call it the “Archie Sex Show” in my head.) I’ve heard rumors that company management wants to streamline their output to ONLY focus on Riverdale-related stuff, and seeing as how the Ken Penders business was a tremendous waste of time that ripped some large holes in their relationship with Sega, it only makes sense that both companies would decide to part ways.  So where do we go from here? Well, it was suddenly announced today that IDW Publishing would be the ones picking up the Sonic license for a relaunch of the book in 2018. IDW’s a fit place for Sonic, since they currently publish the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…which Archie once owned the license for. (Funny how these things go in circles, eh?) Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the current arc that was going on in the Archie books - a charming retelling of the Sonic CD story - is going to go unfinished, and I’m also fearful that we’ll be saying goodbye to the DiC Freedom Fighters. I’d LOVE to be proven wrong, and it would warm my heart to see Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, Rotor and Nicole survive a change in publishers. But since Sega’s never “officially” acknowledged those characters in a game (except for Sonic Spinball, which was made by an American studio and doesn’t really count) they’re likely going to be classified as expendable cannon fodder that are no longer relevant. There is some hope, though. Perhaps a miracle will occur and IDW will have the good sense to re-hire guys like Ian Flynn or maintain some semblance of the continuity that an entire generation knows and loves. Until the day we know for sure arrives, I’ll just have to re-read my old issues, revel in the glory of covers drawn by SPAZ, laugh at insane crossovers like the time Sonic met Spawn, and remember an era when a hedgehog with attitude and his Knothole friends kicked Dr. Robotnik’s butt and brought me twenty plus years of wonderful adventures.  For Mobius! For freedom!

The header image of the Archie Sonic cast was drawn by darkspeeds and found on Deviantart. The cover images are just a few of my favorites from the days when I was subscribed to the book, and were taken from Comic Vine and Cover Browser.

[toaarcan]

I was confused about Knuckles being given the role too, but there was the faint hope that it would lead to a revival of his intelligent and tricky portrayal from the classic days. Alas, it wasn’t to be, and the comic doubled-down by having it established that Knuckles really is that stupid and Amy held everything together.

The reason, I think, that Knuckles didn’t get compared to Sally while Amy did is because Sally and Amy are a lot closer in the role they fill than Sally and Knuckles are. “Boneheaded and egotistical wannabe leader” doesn’t feel like Sally, but “Tactically competent and computer-savvy resistance leader who is also at least partially a love interest to Sonic” is a pretty darn Sally-esque character description. 

When Knuckles is made leader in Forces, that’s weird and dumb but it just seems like them giving an important role to a major game character who has been sorely underutilised in the past few titles.

Even when Amy is seen doing the computer stuff in Forces, that doesn’t really stand out as anything too similar to Sally. Rather it feels just like the Knuckles situation: A bizarre and unfitting character choice that probably happened because she was the only one from the 1991-1994 crew that wasn’t already doing something else.

But when the comics go on to portray her as the real tactician behind the resistance, then things get weirdly echo-y.

For starters, the IDW comic is stepping into the shoes that Archie left behind. A fair chunk of the early-adopters were probably Archie readers too. And for them, there’s a fair chance that it feels like the Freedom Fighters are missing. So a character displaying traits that one of the missing FF are known for, when that’s not typical of their character? It’s going to stand out.

And yes, Amy’s portrayal in these comics doesn’t track with her portrayal in most of the recent games. And I’m singling out the comics here because they’re at a higher standard of plot and characterisation than the games. Pontac and Graff couldn’t write their way out of a wet paper bag, they have professed to having zero knowledge of the Sonic series, and their portrayal of characters in Sonic games has been shit since they started in Colours and has somehow only gotten worse. A character not being portrayed well by them is par for the course. But I expect better from Ian Flynn.

The comic is trying to posit the idea that Amy became a tactical badass during the Forces timejump, but unfortunately that just doesn’t add up. Amy had the beginnings of an arc in the Adventure days where she decided to become more independent and earn Sonic’s respect, in one game, and then started to follow up on that in the second. She bungled it a few times, needed Sonic and Tails to bail her out, but she still managed some wins and played a pivotal role in getting Shadow to help. It was a good start.

Then Heroes came out and torpedoed that. Since then Amy has become a character that violently tries to force Sonic to marry her (yikes), is so fixated on him that she’ll hallucinate him fighting alongside her, was willing to throw away the whole world if it meant being with him (Double yikes), and whose only concern upon getting trapped in a cold, lifeless void, that apparently feels like being dead, was that she would be unable to flirt with Sonic again. All while becoming steadily less and less able to actually recognise him. 

The makings of a great leader, alright. She’s just a natural for this. Or not.

(I’mma throw Mega Drive out right away because its take on the characters was at best exaggerated for comedic effect and at worst another case of “Just give them whatever personality we like”.)

Her ability to take command over Cream and Big isn��t exactly a feat. Cream is a small child, raised to be not-remotely-assertive, and Big is less intelligent than the frog he chases around. Anyone could be their leader, provided they weren’t a jerk. Or even if, considering how bad a job Amy does.

Despite ostensibly setting out after Sonic because they have a photograph that shows him abducting Froggy and Chocola, when they actually catch up to him, Amy completely forgets about her team-mates missing pets (AKA the entire reason they’re even on this journey) in favour of attempting to browbeat him into marrying her. Great job, Amy.

With Storm, not only is he barely smarter than Big, but she basically just browbeats him into helping her, and still loses control the moment he gets distracted by a second Ark of the Cosmos.

She has led a child and two idiots, and failed at both.

(With Gamma, she confused him. He reacts with surprise because he doesn’t comprehend why Amy cares about the bird. That’s all.)

Added, venturing back to the Adventure days for reference doesn’t really help, considering that then there’s the factor of her and Tails apparently swapping reactions to Sonic “dying” from SA2.

Really, it should be Tails in the leadership role. He took it in SA2, even when Sonic was around the group still followed his plans, and he was explicitly put in charge by Sonic when Eggman jettisoned him into space. But nope, Tails is entirely dependent on Sonic to even function. Which, given the above list of how Sonic-centric Amy’s entire life has become... Yeah, seems like they got this backwards.

Ultimately, Amy has a lasting issue where SEGA clearly recognised that portraying the main female character in their franchise as a violent, obsessive stalker-with-a-crush first, everything else second was probably a bad idea, and scrambled to change that. But even though they’ve since created more rounded, less boy-focused female characters since then, like Rouge and Blaze, they’re unwilling to use anything that showed up after 1994 outside of spinoffs and small roles in cutscenes, because of the toxic “only the classics were good” mentality that’s been fostered thanks to the internet. So now Amy has no set personality, they just do whatever they want with her because she’s the only girl they’re allowing themselves to make more than a cameo out of.

I’d also like the refute the suggestion that Sally was born to be a leader and thus somehow lesser for it?

First off, the takeover happened when Sally was five years old, she sure as hell wasn’t leading anything until a long while after that. She lost her home and her family, just like everyone else, and she chose to step up to the plate when she could have left it to those older and more experienced. The comics and cartoon portrayed the reasons why somewhat differently, 

Going into the two different portrayals, the SatAM cartoon outright establishes that Sally is more than aware that her title and rank from before the war with Robotnik started mean absolutely nothing now that she lives in a shed in the woods. The show establishes that Sally is a leader by merit, not by birth.

The comic goes a different route. In it, her father is portrayed as a sexist and bigoted jerk, who tries more than once to force her into following old traditions. Comic Sally wasn’t born to be a leader. She was born to marry one of Max’s favourites and make some grandkids for him, something that she ultimately rejected. She became the leader by choice.

I remember when I made this edit as a jab at the IDW comic and got someone to shriek out on how “dark” Forces was. My whole point was “Amy is written as if she were Sally” which I view as bad character writing. That someone who responded ranted several paragraphs how it made total sense for Amy to go from Sonic’s fangirl to a military tactician in the span of one game.

I was not trying to make the point of “put Sally in the comics” but pointing out how Amy was written exactly how anyone else would write Sally. But whatev’s, I got a laugh and that’s all that matters.

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 1

Honestly, I think it's time for me to give closure to the “Sonic fan phase” of my life. I’ll keep playing the games if they pique my interest, but in terms of the stories they tell and how their characters are portrayed, these games no longer appeal to me. The comic currently published by IDW isn’t complete garbage nor does it have so much drama and controversy surrounding it, in addition to having Whisper and Tangle, two characters I really like at least on a conceptual level, but the story and characterizations are leaving me deeply disappointed and sometimes fall even lower than the recent games written by Pontac & Graff, namely with regard to the characterization of Sonic himself.

The continuity of the TV series Sonic SatAM and the comics published by Archie was always the branch of the franchise that truly caught my attention and is my main source of inspiration for writing stories; in fact, SatAM was the way I found out about Sonic and became a fan in the first place. But this “North-American continuity” is already as dead as the Mega Man Legends saga, and it looks like the vast majority want to forget it as if each and every one of its elements and ideas inherently had just been a massive nightmare regardless of its execution by the writers. At best, the fandom currently sees this branch of Sonic as some silly “edgy” attempt to take the franchise seriously, something that may have been laudable but was always foolish and doomed to fail and is such a risky gamble that it's not worth trying again.

I'm also getting fed up with the Sonic fandom in general, despite sharing a lot of opinions with some individual fans. Yes, I know there are already many who have declared this for the most varied reasons, be it the “shipp wars”, something in Sonic or even the franchise as a whole suddenly becoming “cringe” due to a whim of a majority portion of the fandom, or the way Sonic reuses "hackneyed" tropes in an alleged demonstration of lack of originality; however, when someone gives Sonic the middle finger for this kind of reasons, they usually do it hypocritically.

No, what got me tired of the Sonic fandom is the way everyone becomes obsessed with picking one branch of the franchise, calling it "the true Sonic", claiming this is the only pure and genuine incarnation of the “soul of Sonic” (if there really is such a thing), marking as “foreigner” every character, concept or element from any other branch of the franchise, and demanding from the fans of those other branches to get on their knees and be thankful that the "True Fans (TM)" even allow them to stay in the fandom. Note that I’m not accusing fans of only one specific portion of the franchise: there are such people among fans of the videogames’ continuity, @skull001 being probably the worst offender, but there’s also that kind of people among the SatAM and Archie-Sonic fans, such as the “nostalgic” delusional pissbabies, blatantly homophobic and conservative, who are now supporting Twitter hashtags like “Rally4Sally” and “Udon4Sonic”. You may think this is actually something typical of all fandoms, but it’s not: this is truly something unique to the Sonic fandom; I don't see huge hordes of Mega Man fans bullying the Legends fandom or making fun of them for the way their favourite saga ended two decades ago; even in the Dragon Ball fandom, despite constant discussions about what is canon and what is not, there’s some kind of tacit consensus that GT and Super are two offshoots of the franchise, equally valid although not coexisting in one same fictional universe (although Shūeisha itself seems to officially support this view, which certainly helps prevent some discourse), while the only part of Dragon Ball universally despised (and rightly so) is Dragon Ball Evolution.

I'm sorry if this hurts some people’s sensibilities, but if I decide to write a story with any given set of characters, elements, concepts, setting, internal rules and whatnot, the only thing in my mind will be to write a mildly decent story. I'm not here to “honour” -let alone honour at all costs- some supposed legacy and traditions that some people say should be upheld by each and every Sonic content creator. And let’s be brutally frank: we’re talking about a franchise that started as platformer 16-bit videogames whose sole purpose was to show SEGA’s consoles were better and handled speed better than Nintendo's; SEGA never really intended to tell a story or portray its characters consistently, only later did the cast begin to receive more defined personalities and the games start telling stories because SEGA suddenly saw this would make them sell more, and even that varied wildly according to whatever seemed more convenient at the time; not to mention SEGA's unique habit of entering vicious cycles of failure and over-correction, where Sonic Team makes a few mistakes in a game that did everything else more or less well, SEGA throws away the entire game along with the foundations on which it was built and the story that was told by that game, Sonic Team makes a new game with absolutely everything replaced and makes mistakes again but those mistakes are different from those of the previous game, the process is repeated ad nauseam and no-one is ever satisfied with anything. A few Sonic fans trying to impose on every other fan a supposed single Sonic canon with some kind of official approval seal by SEGA & Sonic Team is something quite backward, because that single official canon almost never really existed, and if it does exist, it makes no sense and is internally inconsistent, dependent on the creation of new games, and very likely to be retconned, overwritten and modified at any time.

There are other "bad habits" of the Sonic fandom that have led me to break ties with them. One of them is the way many fans take one trait of a character, be it simply one of many facets of their personality or even a physical trait, and turn that into the entire personality of the character; many of those same fans are also massive hypocrites, complaining (albeit rightfully) about how SEGA oversimplifies Shadow into either “Sasuke the Hedgehog” or “Vegeta the Hedgehog”, but then they do the same as SEGA. One of the cases in which this is most evident is when they make Sonic's personality boil down to "gotta go fast" and "be a free spirit"; based on that, they denounce that Sonic saying "I would slow down for you" to one of his closest friends (even if Sonic and Sally weren’t a couple when he said that and/or you don’t support that shipp, it can be said she was at least one of his closest friends in the SatAM-Archie continuity) contradicts the very essence of the character, or they do something even worse: saying that "being a free spirit" means being away from your friends and not having "ties" (like... literal ties, made with ropes, the ones that are actually a bad thing) with anything or anyone. It's like when Goku is portrayed by Dragon Ball fans as far more insensitive than the actual way Akira Toriyama had conceived him and always wrote and portrayed him in his official work.

There are also the plainly disturbing ideas many fans seem to have about personal relationships, judging by the opinions they give about the relationships of Sonic and the rest of the cast. In addition to making everything revolve around vaguely defined words and concepts they throw right and left almost without thinking about their actual meaning, they also seem to believe that having friends and caring for them, or any kind of responsibility no matter what kind it is, is nothing but a drag, like rat-s*** stopping you on your way to "freedom" (this is just amazing: they say the entire Western canon is edgy and the British comic’s Sonic is a jerk, but if you think about this for a bit, these fans’ version of Sonic turns out to be even edgier and more of a jerk than Shadow in his spin-off videogame); in the case of Archie-Sonic, there are all the abuse apologists supporting Scourge and Fiona being a couple, even though you don’t need any “meta” analysis to see he’s (at the very least) verbally abusive towards her and had attracted her by posing as someone else in the first place.

[nuttyrabbit]

To start, and skipping ahead a bit here, my intention was never to get on a "high horse". Rather, it was to comment on a common fandom trend that seems to have made its home in this fandom as well.

Secondly; Yes, Shadow's characterization could've been a lot better than it was. I personally think it was fine for what it was, if inferior to other iterations of the character (06 and Archie mainly.) But the thing is, my post wasn't just about Shadow. Rather, this has been something I've been noticing for a while, especially when it comes to the mistakes Charmy and Sonic ended up making. Interestingly enough, you actually bring up the fact that Sonic's mistake (or one like it) was very in-line with his character, yet people claimed it was bad writing all the same, despite it making sense in the story proper. The same thing happened with Charmy as well, with people claiming it was bad writing or "idiot ball" to have a character make a perfectly believable error in their judgment and pay the price for it.

You say that anyone with a basic grasp of storytelling should know that characters shouldn't be right all the time, but at the same time, I've noticed that most of the supposedly "better" scenarios fans have come up with have had the characters not make mistakes/have their flaws put on display, but instead be screwed over at the behest of other parties and/or random chance. (Though I will say Shadow seems to be an exception to this so far). So if anything, it feels like to me people either don't know this, don't believe it, or just don't care.

When taking all of this into account, I feel like these factors only lead credence to my original point, and very much the reason I made both this post and my chat post to begin with.

And like I said before, this is not something exclusive to IDW Sonic or even Sonic in general. This is something I've seen play out tine and time again in various fandoms over the past few years

Though I will say this: at least you acknowledge the fact that Sega did have a hand in Shadow's weird characterization here. Some people for some reason refuse to acknowledge that fact.

The thing I'm finding annoying here is that... This is like, what the first bad issue we've had in this arc? Everything up to this point? Solid. We get this one bad issue, and everybody is now using it to say that all of IDW is shit. All that good will that Ian's worked hard to foster in the community, completely gone. All because of one bad issue.

The thing is that it’s not even a bad issue, just a merely okay one. The whole Shadow thing could’ve been handled a lot better than it was (for starters it could’ve actually conveyed the self sacrifice thing it seemed to be going for), but it’s by no means bad.

Honestly it really just feels like fandoms, not just this one, love to talk a big game about how much they want the character’s flaws to come into play or for them to face consequences right up until the point they actually do or have those things, at which point they turn around and scream how it’s bad writing because the characters *gasp* aren’t perfect and actually made a mistake or have genuine flaws.

This is not something exclusive to IDW Sonic or even this franchise by any means. Hell, just look at the critical tags for any franchise that has one and you see this time and time and time again.

Of course I’m not saying that the execution of this particular mistake was perfect or that characters can’t make mistakes because of bad writing, that’d be fucking ridiculous. But what I am saying is that it more often feels like people don’t like this kind of thing on principle rather than on a case by case basis

Also I’ll close this out with a great tweet a friend of mine made that I feel perfectly sums up my feelings on this