#we have like 37 versions of Tails from Sonic

[foundfamilyhq]

[chaoxfix]

hmm... sonic and amy, 37 "try to eat something"

here ya go! post-forces

///

“Try to eat something,” Sonic encourages, and it’s clear from the reassuring look on his face that he’s trying, in his own way, to make her feel better. But the thought of eating right now just sends another wave of anxiety-nausea through Amy. 

“I’d like to see you try to eat something, if you were about to go speak in front of… of…” 

“The whole planet?” Sonic says encouragingly. “You’re right. That’s why I’ve got the best public speaker this side of Mobius to do it instead.”

“Ough.” Amy leans over a potted plant, and Sonic politely looks away as she gags. Maybe he needs to try another strategy here… 

Sonic peels off his gloves then licks his finger and thumb. He fixes up a few of her quills that have been in disarray all day – they’ve been bothering him just to look at, and he’s sure that she doesn’t want to be on TV with her quills out of place. 

“Are you messing them up?” she complains. 

“Would I do that?” Sonic asks, and continues tidying them up until they’re all laying perfectly in place under her headband. Satisfied, he slips his glove back on. Then, he rests a hand on her shoulder. “...Feeling any better?” 

“If I made a joke about faking my death to get out of this,” Amy says, “Would you see that as insensitive?” 

Sonic just snickers. 

Amy groans, then finally gets to her feet. Her knees are still shaking. “Do we even really need to give a speech? You gave one already, didn’t you?” 

“To Tails, another version of me, and that guy who saved me from space jail – by the way, do you like, usually send rookies to bail out your MVP? No offense, and I’m grateful for having someone bust me out, but I kind of was expecting you or Knuckles or Tails-?” 

Amy’s eye twitches.

“Anyways,” Sonic says, and smoothly stands her upright, “It wasn’t a great speech. Because I’m not a speech-maker. You on the other hand – I bet you could make everyone feel safe and hopeful again.” 

“What if I just copy what you said?” 

“Again, the speech I gave, just to me, alternate-version-of-me, Tails, and rookie? Or the one after mini-me went home? Because I’m pretty sure neither of them lasted more than thirty seconds, and I can’t remember any of it.”

“I thought it was fine,” Amy says. “Maybe that should be the time estimate I’m rooting for too, come to think of it…” 

Sonic chuckles and pats her on the back. “Whatever you think is best,” he says. “But I wasn’t kidding about eating something before going up there. You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

Sonic plucks a tiny protein bar from his quills. Amy blinks. 

“Perks of having longer quills – I still can’t believe you keep them so short,” he says, and passes her the bar. “Eat, okay? And drink some water. And remember the most important thing about speech-making!”

Amy nibbles on the bar, unwilling to admit she already feels slightly better. “So you do have actual advice?”

Sonic winks and shoots finger guns at her. “Leave them wanting more.” 

“So I should keep it under thirty seconds.” She sighs, then glances down to the cards she’s meticulously plotted out. Why can’t these be tarot cards instead? She’s much better at reading those. “Oh, man…” 

With that, Sonic starts for the exit, ducking out and only dipping his head inside. “You’re gonna do great,” he says, more kindly this time. “I’ll be in the front row, okay? No matter what happens, I’ll make sure everyone cheers.” 

With that, he closes the door behind him. 

Amy takes a deep breath, then gathers the cards in front of her again. 

Then, shreds all but one and walks to the exit, herself. Short, sweet, and to the point. They have a world to rebuild, after all.

[rosemaryreality]

Sonic Prime S2 EP1 Reaction.

Alright so we are back to the start? but from Shadow's pov

2. Ooooh so Shadow saw all those freaky giant hollograms(? of their friends

3. Ah, i was wondering about that, so there's a barrier Shadow can't pass through.

4. HE LOST THE CHAOS EMERALD????!!!!!

5. !!!! so SHADOW is the reason why Sonic's shoes would act up???

6. Oof, dude's been trying for a while.

7. I had noticed this before in season 1, but god, the way sonic says "home" breaks my heart every time

8. So he still thinks Shadow isn't the real Shadow? really dude? unlike everyone else, he clearly recognizes you

9. "Sherrif shadow of floating rock world" ALRIGHT WE GET IT!! there's no cowboy world, no need to rub it in

10. DUDE HE CLEARLY SAID YOUR NAME. HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE. HE IS YOUR SHADOW.

11. Oh. speaked too soon i guess. Anyway FINALLY!!

12. SONADOW HUG!!! i'm redrawing this.

13. LMAO. the way shadow slides to the left, feels so extra for me i love it.

14. If those giant shards weren't there, how would sonic move while in there? would shadow have to carry him?

15. Rip green emerald.

16. Aww he missed the palm trees.

17. "Just like home" but it's not.

18. Holy shit he is gonna see the "ghost" version of tails.

19. Oooooh, interesting. I thought everyone except big would be at the cage, but tails is at the beach near his workshop. So it's not about where they where when it happened, it's probably about significant places.

20. Oh, they're ALL at the beach. I'm guessing the palm tree amy's at is THE palm three, so they really must have plenty of memories there, if it's the place they're all at.

21. Omg i love prime sonic but GOD is he slow, they're not you're real friends!! and where is shadow anyway? i bet he is silently judging you.

22. Oooooh i wonder if this is partly why shadow is so quick to dismiss the people from the shatterverses, even if they're clearly more life like than these versions, it's probably hard for him to consider them as much more than this: shallow versions of their friends, their missing pieces, especially since he can't meet them for himself (yet).

23. THE WAY HE HUGS HIMSELF I CAN'T!!!! i know it's his fault but COME ON!!

24. Oooh the way Shadow looked at his shoes, already planning to steal them?

25. EXCUSE YOU SHADOW WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY BOY NINE?!!! HAVE YOU EVEN MET HIM? WHO ARE YOU TO SAY HE CAN'T BE TRUSTED??!

26. Oh god he really thinks of Nine as "angsty Tails" i'm crying.

27. "He's not tails. he is nine" look at what you've done Sonic, now i have to agree with Shadow just after he insulted Nine.

28. "This is his reality" oh god ummm i don't think I agree with that.

29. Ugh sonic how can i be mad at you when you are defending Nine? still don't like that he doesn't see him as his own person though.

30. Yeah i can't blame Shadow for not trusting Sonic, like, WHO would trust him at this point?

31. "I know what you are capable of" oh? OH? so NEITHER of them trust the other one, huh.

32. OMG HE GRABBED IT WITH HIS MOUTH?? I ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT.

33. Well, that was fast, let's see his reaction to the fact they do nothing for him.

34. ?????????????????????????? WTF? I'M SORRY DID I MISS A SCENE??

35. OOOOOOOOH HE TOOK BACK THE ONES FOR HIS SHOES.

36. God this Shadow is so extra, couldn't you put that one like a normal person?

37. Wait so they DID help him get out of there, how? maybe those things have some of Sonic's energy on them? whtever it is, couldn't be enough to get past the barriers.

38. I don't know if the place between shatterspaces is a good place to be fighting, Shadow has his airshoes but what if Sonic falls into the void?

39. I couldn't believe Sonic said "come at me, bro" when i heard it, now SHADOW? and he sounded so smug too

40. What happened in new yoke?

41. Oh right, THOSE guys.

42. So sonic can just spindash his way through that place.

43. Man that knocked out shadow BAD.

44. SONADOW PRINCESS CARRY!!!! Sonic prime really is a gift to all ships.

45. OF COURSE he fell on his face, gotta love running gags.

46. Finally got to the "together" part, god is sonic smug about it, on other news, sonadow needs each other, hell yeah.

47. "I won't let you down, shadow" awwwww.

48. For some reason the shadow vision was so funny to me, bro he is not DEAD.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 50: Major event that dramatically shakes up status quo. Turns out to be a dream

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ���80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

It’s been awhile between episodes, huh? Well buckle up, because I’m coming back strong with the big episode #50 celebration! You’d expect episode 50 to be a really big, significant episode, and at first it looks like it is. But then they have the gotcha moment right at the end where we find out that none of that actually happened:

Episode 50: Major event that dramatically shakes up status quo. Turns out to be a dream 

A classic trope, this one. One of the best versions of it was in a Batman: The Animated Series episode, “Over the Edge.” Batgirl was killed by Scarecrow right in front of Commissioner Gordon, who declared war on the Bat family when he realised Batgirl was his own daughter Barbara.

What happened after that was incredibly gripping television, and I’d highly recommend you go watchthis episode if you haven’t seen it before.

But we're not here to talk about Batman. In the case of ArchieSonic, I can only really think of one time this happened.

Sonic #37’s cover proudly announced a Bunnie Rabbot solo story, and it’s one of the best Bunnie stories that ever got told in the comic. The day began in a perfectly ordinary way, except that Bunnie was suffering from an itch. She later discovered that this itch was more sinister than she thought, as circuitry had begun to spread from her robotic arm to the rest of her body.

Rotor got to work in his lab trying to figure out what was happening, but the answer soon came to them in the form of a recorded message from none other than Robotnik himself.

Apparently a failsafe was installed in Bunnie at the time she was partially roboticised that would ensure that the job would one day be completed and Bunnie would become a fully robotic slave. Rotor and Tails got back to work to try and come up with a solution, despite Robotnik’s gloating about how the process was now irreversible.

Bunnie however noticed herself becoming more hostile as her robotic side fought for control of her body, and so out of fear of hurting her friends, she fled from Knothole.

After running for hours she found herself surprisingly tired, despite the fact that she was now fully robotic. She fell asleep under a tree and was woken the next morning by Sally… only to discover that she was perfectly fine and her worst nightmare had in fact been only a nightmare. 

Switching things up a little bit, Knuckles had a status quo-altering dream that actually was mostly real. The Sonic Adventure adaptation began in Sonic #79, and they had to change up the story a little bit to fit the ArchieSonic lore that was different to that of the games. So while the shattering of the Master Emerald played out differently in the comic, Knuckles had a dream that more closely followed the introduction of his story in the game:

I guess whether or not it altered the status quo that much is debatable, as Angel Island returned to the sky afterwards. But it was part of a shift to the modern era of Sonic, I feel.

One other shift in the status quo that only happened in a dream was in issue #3 of the original Sonic mini-series, where Sonic got injured in a fight and dreamed that he'd grown up with a young Robotnik as a foster brother on Uncle Chuck's farm.

This was before the canon was retconned to more closely resemble the origin story of SatAM.

But of course, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention the most important event that turned out to be a dream, from issue #11:

Whew, I’m really glad that one was only a dream.

Are there any epic, status-quo moments that turned out to be dreams that I missed? Let me know in the comments! Come back next time, because the next episode should be a fun one - villains team up! See you then!

[archiesoniconline]

Knuckles Endangered Species #1 Behind the Scenes!

It’s been a while, but it’s finally time for another behind-the-scenes look at one of our stories!  This time we’ll be covering our latest release, as well as the story that had been visualized and started the earliest in our project: Part 1 of the Endangered Species rewrite.

As usual, let’s start with the cover.  Our ex-admin in charge of the entire rewrite, The Shadow Imperator, took inspiration from the covers for Sonic the Hedgehog #211 and 245, as well as an advertisement for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.  Pencils, inks and colors were all done by @drawloverlala​, who managed to brilliantly blend all the designs together into something new and exciting.

The story begins immediately where the official #243 left off, with Sonic getting KO’ed by Metal Knuckles.  The robot doppelganger is quick to remind Lien-Da of his mission to monitor her and keep her in line, which is a nod to Sonic Universe #37, where Eggman told his Grandmasters that the Metal Series will be doing just that.

Since Lien-Da is the Grandmaster of her branch of the Dark Egg Legion, we decided her Kommissar should be Gae-Na, her old confidant that hadn’t been seen since StH #118.  She was given a heavy redesign by CrimDa, sporting a more realistic cybernetic eye as well as electric batons similar to Lien-Da’s electric whips.  Her absence up until this point was due to maternity leave, having only recently given birth to her daughter Demi-Na but was left to raise the girl alone after losing her husband Kanewisher to the Egg Grapes.

 You may have noticed that when Gae-Na knocks out Amy, she doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it.  As a mother, she doesn’t relish the idea of fighting children, but will do what it takes to ensure that her daughter can grow up in a stable echidna society, even if it’s a society ruled by Eggman.

For a much more minor echidna cameo, we see the return of Syntar, who hasn’t appeared since being unceremoniously knocked out by a time-traveling Lara-Su in StH #109.  Now a sergeant in Lien-Da’s army, he’s seen leading the Albion prisoners to be legionized... only to be unceremoniously knocked out yet again by Knuckles.  Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess. 

We also see Komi-Ko comforting Bimmy Jr., a young echidna orphan whose father and namesake was tragically killed in the Egg Grapes.  Back in 243 he was only referred to as “young man”, since the legal issues at the time forbade his real name from being mentioned.

Another echidna character given a redesign by CrimDa is Crystal-La, the wife of Athair and Knuckles’ great-grandmother.  We decided to re-purpose her as the Mitre of the Albion Aurorium, in order to bring back of a glimpse of the religious aspects of echidna society that were largely ignored during Ian Flynn’s run of the comic.  Our initial redesign failed to take her significant age into account, so we made her look older in the final story.  Considering the fact that she considers her own great-grandson to be some sort of messiah, it’s easy to see that she’s gone a little kooky in her old age.

You may have noticed that Saffron Bee was also given a new wardrobe, which were actually based off of notes left by Aleah Baker for a redesign of her that was planned in the official comic  ShadImp felt strongly about giving her as big of a role in the rewrite as possible, as was the original intention.

.  

Knuckles using his Warp Ring to attack Syntar was an idea from ShadImp’s co-writer for the remake, TuxKnux.  It was meant to demonstrate how Knuckles has had more practice controlling Chaos Energy, another example of which we’ll see later.    

In order to calm down a terrified Bimmy Jr., Saffron gives him her Nightopian Doll, which hasn’t been seen since all the way back in the Return to Angel Island arc.  Unfortunately, this ended up triggering her PTSD of the destruction of the Golden Hive Colony, as well as Charmy’s brain damage.

This can easily be missed on a first read, but here is when we first see Julie-Su taking a cloak from a defeated Legionnaire, which ends up being important later.

The cuffs binding Team Fighters and Remington were surprisingly difficult to draw, since we needed something that could hold them in place, but also free all of them instantly when deactivated.  In the end, electric shackles powered by a nearby generator seemed like the best solution.

The mural behind Lien-Da, meant to reference the Forgotten Wars, originally had a different design that was scrapped because it didn’t make sense for such a picture to be in Albion.  It was also based off of a cutscene in Sonic Chronicles, during Imperator Ix’s final speech to Knuckles.  Eventually, the original mural design was re-purposed for Emerl’s data file in StHO #249.

This is the first time that Remington and Lien-Da have met since Enerjak’s rampage, so it was important to have the interactions between them be meaningful.  Remington may have suffered greatly during and after his time being the brainwashed Grandmaster of the Frost Legion, as well as being the son of Lien-Da’s hated brother Kragok, but he hasn’t allowed the trauma to diminish his strong sense of justice and has grown as a person because of it.

Although hostages causing a panic among their captors is generally not considered a good idea, Tails dropping the bombshell (no pun intended) that Eggman could blow up the legionnaires at any moment does help upset Lien-Da’s control of the situation, proving instrumental to her defeat later.

At this point in the story, Thrash hasn’t directly made his move yet, but the wheels are clearly in motion.  Originally ShadImp was going to have Thrash’s plan be identical to the official Endangered Species, sending all the echidnas away in a super-charged Warp Ring.  It took him a while to come up with a different plan, one that requires a sample of echidna DNA.  Incidentally, this is also Gae-Na’s only other appearance in the issue, as she was put on patrol duty after the initial battle with Team Fighters.

The showdown between Knuckles and Metal Knuckles may be seen as disappointingly short, but ShadImp made clear that he prioritized meaningful storytelling over elongated fight scenes.  Plus, Knuckles serving only as the distraction while Saffron destroys the robot with a hijacked turret and Julie-Su sneaks off incognito does a good job showcasing that the Chaotix came into the fight much better prepared than Team Fighters.

Also worthy of note is the legionnaire’s dismissive attitude towards Komi-Ko and the other Albionites.  Since about half of the Legion gave up on fighting and accepted Enerjak’s offer to migrate to Albion, it stands to reason that the ones who chose to stay are the most fanatical and loyal to the Legion’s cause.

Another minor echidna cameo is a younger Cobar, who was originally only seen in the 25 Years Later storyline.  At this point in time he’s still a member of the Legion, although his timid nature appears to be unchanged.

As well as demonstrating Remington’s character development, this scene does a good job showing that even the most loyal legionnaires are sick of the pointless wars they’ve fought in.  Lien-Da is the only truly evil person among all of them, and her grasp on them is crumbling rapidly.

As was mentioned earlier, having the disguised Julie-Su destroy the generator powering the shackles was a quick and easy way to get Team Fighters back into the action, as well as converge the two plots occurring simultaneously in this issue.

Having Wynmacher deal the final blow against Lien-Da was both an opportunity to give the non-combatant echidnas a chance to shine, as well as a callback to his very first appearance in Knuckles the Echidna #6, where he performed a similar tackle and mentioned his varsity days.

When Riggo first penciled this panel, he had drawn Kneecaps as more the size of a toddler than an infant, which was corrected in the final story.

This panel was originally going to feature some good old Sonic & Knuckles action, but ended up being only Knuckles using Thunder Arrow.  This is the other example of his improved mastery of Chaos Energy, as unlike the previous Guardians he doesn’t need to be within short range of the Master Emerald to use it.  It’s still not perfect though, as just using it once is shown to tire him out quite a bit. 

Finally, we have Thrash making his grand entrance.  He was originally drawn with an entire pack of Devil Dogs around him, but it’s actually an important plot point that he only has two with him at the moment, so this was changed in the final version.

That’s it for this post, but unlike the other stories, this one was a revision of an even earlier rewrite, one that was started on and scrapped before ASO was even a thing.  Next time, we’ll be going BEHIND behind the scenes at ShadImp’s original Endangered Species remake!

[thankskenpenders]

So there’s this little cartoon you may have heard of...

As I’ve said on this blog before, I’d never watched all of SatAM. This might be shocking to hear from someone who runs a blog dedicated to Archie Sonic and one of the top twenty Bunnie Rabbot fangirls in the world. But it’s true.

SatAM was very difficult to track down compared to other Sonic cartoons when I was a kid, and I just never got around to watching it as an adult. So for the longest time, I had only ever seen the first episode, which I found uploaded in parts on YouTube in 2007. As the one cartoon featuring the characters I liked from the comics, it became sort of this holy grail of Sonic media for me as a kid, especially with people online always talking it up as the best thing ever and petitioning for a revival. Hell, to this day, a lot of people hold it up as this masterpiece and act like the Archie comics were a complete mockery of it

Anyway so I finally got around to watching the whole series with my boyfriend these past couple weeks, and it was pretty good. So instead of covering a comic today, here are some thoughts on the cartoon that started it all

General Thoughts

SatAM is a pretty good show. It isn’t the greatest piece of Sonic media ever, unlike what some older fans will tell you. It might not even be the best Sonic cartoon (you could easily make a case for the Japanese version of Sonic X, or Sonic Boom if you’re looking for something more comedic). It hasn’t aged the most gracefully, in some ways. The animation’s cheap, the stories sometimes bland. But for a DiC-produced video game cartoon from the early ‘90s, it’s really solid

I think that in many ways, SatAM is carried by the strength of its ideas over its actual execution. The darker, more serious tone is a really cool idea, even if at times it can get a little dull, and even if the show actually gets silly as hell pretty often. (This is a show where Snively literally tortures a captive Antoine by preparing French cuisine improperly.) That opening scene of Robotropolis in the first episode actually sets the mood really well and feels like it came straight out of some cyberpunk anime from the ‘80s or ‘90s. The concept of Robotnik turning people into robot slaves is really cool, even if surprisingly little was done with this aside from Uncle Chuck’s storyline. And I think the Freedom Fighters make a great supporting cast for Sonic, even if the writers didn’t use them to their full potential

Interestingly, I’d often heard from fans that season one was the stronger of the two, when I’d say that the opposite is true. Season one episodes were pretty samey, usually involving low stakes missions to Robotropolis with no real continuity, and Sally ended up being a damsel in distress more than I’d like--hell, so did Bunnie in a few episodes. It wasn’t bad, but it was highly repetitive, and I got a little bored at times. Season two had a few real stinkers (the Antoine episodes) and Dulcy was an unwelcome addition, but I thought the heavier focus on continuity gave the season some real momentum and more emotional weight, which made it way more enjoyable overall

Things I Liked

Sonic. I quite liked this version of Sonic, actually! Jaleel White is a great Sonic, and he was written pretty well. At times the extremely tubular ‘90s lingo was grating (I never wanna hear “Gotta juice!” again), but I was surprised to see that this version of Sonic had a lot of heart. He really cared about the well-being of his friends and Uncle Chuck, and they even let him cry a couple times. I thought they struck a good balance between snark and sincerity with him

Sally. I don’t think SatAM Sally was perfect, but I liked her. I’m still of the opinion that she should have been given more ways to defend herself physically (maybe some kind of power of her own) so that Sonic didn’t have to save her as much, but I liked the banter she and Sonic had. Unlike the early Archie comics, Sally doesn’t come off as the bossy girlfriend who ruins Sonic’s fun. Maybe it’s Jaleel White and Kath Soucie’s performances doing most of the work, but they had a fun back and forth dynamic, with Sally’s sarcasm keeping Sonic’s ego in check, but there still being clear chemistry between the two of them

I also liked the greatly reduced emphasis on her being a princess compared to much of Archie’s material. Like yeah, it’s there. Her dad’s the king, and left her some classified info via Nicole. But her status doesn’t really affect things much. They don’t talk about her having this grand destiny and being the next in line to rule. It’s clear that she’s in charge of the Freedom Fighters not because of her status, but because she’s smart, brave, and gets shit done. That’s the Sally I like.

Plus! In the finale, Sally insisted upon going with Sonic for the final confrontation, and was a crucial part of the climax. Her powering up with Sonic and matching his speed and strength ruled. Compare that to the climactic defeat of Robotnik in Archie, where she was fucking dead

Robotnik. I don’t think much needs to be said here. Jim Cummings rules as Robotnik, like everyone has always said. He’s just so evil and so much fun to watch

Snively??? I’ve never cared for Snively as a character, but Charlie Adler rules and his over-the-top performance made the character way funnier than he should’ve been. Just something about all the little noises he makes, and the way he almost shifts into the Red Guy voice at times

Nicole. It was fun to see Nicole start to get more of a personality in season two, having some banter with Sonic and also picking up some slang from him. It makes the later decision to turn Sally’s computer into a full character (which would have happened in season three, and obviously eventually became a big subplot in the comics) make a lot of sense

King Acorn. While he was only around briefly, I liked that he wasn’t a huge dick, unlike Archie’s King Max

Things I Didn’t Like

The misuse of the other Freedom Fighters. This is, by far, the show’s greatest crime.

I already write approximately 100k words a week on this blog about how I think Bunnie Rabbot is amazing and criminally underused, so I’ll keep this brief, but I was shocked to see how little she was used in this show. People tend to say Dulcy stole her screentime in season two, but she didn’t have much to do in the first season either! We somehow never got a single episode focusing on her. The one where she got temporarily deroboticized focused much more on Uncle Chuck. We never got to learn the story behind her roboticization, or delved into her feelings on the matter much. She mostly just served as a positive, lighthearted supporting member of the team who acts cute and gets some funny lines, but usually stays home

Antoine might have been even worse, honestly. Like, they used him so much! They had multiple episodes focusing entirely on him! And yet I’m not sure he ever really helped. Sonic and Sally kept taking him along, but every single time it felt like it would’ve been a wiser decision to bring Bunnie instead. The jokes about his broken English were just dumb, and god, the way he constantly hits on Sally and starts kissing her hand at the most inappropriate times is just SO fucking creepy. SatAM Antoine is just a horrible, one-dimensional stereotype. There’s a reason why readers of the Archie comics wanted him out of the series until later writers majorly rehabilitated him

Rotor also didn’t get much use, which was a shame, but it at least felt like he was used efficiently. I got the vibe that Rotor was much more bitter about the war with Robotnik than his friends, and it would’ve been interesting to see this explored more. At least we got that one fun episode where he went to space with Sonic

Dulcy. Oh my fucking god. I wanted to like Dulcy! I really did! But most of the time she was just a clutz used for comic relief, and they kept reusing the same joke where she crashed, bumped her head, got dizzy, and thought she was talking to her mom. This happened in almost every episode she was in.

The other miscellaneous Freedom Fighters. Like in the early Archie comics, none of the other miscellaneous Mobians they meet were as interesting as the core cast. They just always felt very bland and I was never as invested in them as the writers wanted me to be. Ari was boring, and that episode where they found the underground city and this other dude started hitting on Sally was a drag. Lupe’s cute though

Rings. This is a common problem in Sonic adaptations, but the fact that rings always serve as Sonic’s instant win button kind of sucks. Basically any time Sonic’s in a pinch, he pulls a ring out of his backpack, powers up, and wins. Not exactly a recipe for suspenseful action

Oh, also, I did kinda find it weird how much Sonic and Sally kissed? Like, all the time? Often while their friends just stand there and stare at them? Not something I’d expect from a Sonic cartoon

Things Archie Did Better

I’ll limit this to the first 50 issues or so, since I don’t think it would be fair to compare two short seasons of SatAM to the highlights of nearly 500 issues of comics

Tails. Tails is okay in SatAM, Archie just used him as Sonic’s sidekick way more. He was barely even in the show. Poor little guy only gets to play dirt hockey all day

Bunnie. Again, Bunnie was underutilized in both series, but the Archie comics did her better. They actually showed the story of how she got roboticized (even if it was a silly story), and they got to flesh her out a bit more. Gallagher showing that she was a carrot farmer before her roboticization and saying she wanted to be a hairdresser was at least something. And as I keep harping on, Rich Koslowski’s backup story in #37 where we find out Bunnie has recurring nightmares about her robot parts taking over and making her a threat to her friends? This single backup story did more to flesh her out than all 26 episodes of SatAM combined

Antoine. Not hard to do better than SatAM here, really. He was really bad early on, serving as little more than Sonic’s punching bag, but eventually they started to set up a romance between him and Bunnie and explored his past a bit, saying that Antoine’s father (his personal role model) was a member of the royal guard who was roboticized in the war. While he still had a long way to go, these were important first steps towards him being a decent character. Hell, these days, being Bunnie’s love interest is one of Antoine’s defining characteristics! And it doesn’t come from the cartoon at all

Roboticization in general. I was surprised how little this came up in the cartoon! In the comics, it’s such a central element. We see more of the heroes’ loved ones turned into robots, and we even got some fun stories where characters like Sonic and Sally were roboticized temporarily. The Freedom Fighters’ efforts to reverse the process was a major part of the plot for quite a while. Bunnie’s fear of losing control is a pretty important part of her character (even if it was only touched on briefly), and after they’re rescued, the rest of the Mobians fear that the “Robians” (including Sonic’s entire family) will turn evil again. It comes up a lot! There are interesting things to discuss here! But SatAM only really talks about Uncle Chuck. We never even see what happened to everyone else

Closing Thoughts

SatAM is not the best show in the world, but it is a solid and enjoyable one. It’s easy to see why people who grew up with it are fond of it, even if I think that it’s long past time certain fans quit acting like it’s the only valid take on the Sonic source material and petitioning for a third season. At the very least, the concepts and characters introduced here are strong ones, and it’s easy to see how they spawned over 20 years of comics exploring said ideas in greater detail. While I’m not sure I could recommend it to non-fans, I think it’s definitely worth checking out for Sonic fans who missed out on it (especially fans of the Archie comics)

Anyway I got to see Bunnie dropkick some Swatbots twice her height so I had fun

[eggman-empire]

Dr. Eggman’s Good Deeds

by Dr. Mechano

Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik: Nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog and would-be conqueror of the world. For almost thirty years, this man's turned animals into robots, unearthed ancient monsters, and threatened the planet with doomsday weapon after doomsday weapon. In short, he's a villain's villain. A true bad egg. 

But rather than celebrate his feats of villainy, I wanted to talk about the rare times across the franchise that Eggman has performed truly good acts. Eggman's capacity to care, to show kindness, to help others.

Now, I want to clarify what I mean here. For the sake of this list:

I will not be including Eggman teaming up with the heroes to save the world. These acts of "goodness" inherently carry an ulterior motive; That being to save himself and make sure there's still a world for him to conquer. Plus, half the time it's one of his own schemes going out of control anyway. So just saving the world in and of itself won't make the cut for the purpose of my post.

I will also not be including a mere lack of cruelty as "goodness." You don't get a cookie for feeding your prisoners or not torturing people. So while I do think the times where Eggman's lack of cruelty has been pointed out (such as in Unleashed) are important, they're not what I'm talking about either.

I'm specifically talking about times when Eggman does something kind, or helpful, or selfless toward others without some villainous ulterior motive. I will also be including spinoff material, since the majority of these examples come from those rather than the games. So! With that out of the way, let's begin!

Sonic Lost World - Eggman saves Tails

Now, I mentioned that merely teaming up with the heroes doesn't warrant a mention. But I think this goes beyond that.

Tails attaches Cubot's head to a Crabmeat, which causes Cubot to become very aggressive, attacking Tails. Eggman - without a moment to think or evaluate the situation - immediately leaps into harm's way and shoves Tails to safety, honoring his truce with his enemies by putting his own safety on the line to protect them.

Now, you could make the argument that Eggman is only keeping Tails around because he needs him for Sonic to take care of the Zeti (which could also be an argument for Eggman saving Sonic himself later in the same game), but consider: A.) How spur-of-the-moment this was; Eggman didn't have time to calculate how he could use this situation to his advantage, and just leaped as soon as Tails was in danger, and B.) He put himself at risk to save someone else.

Yes, by the end of the game - after the terms of their truce were met, with the Zeti defeated and the machine disabled - Eggman goes right back to fighting them. But during their time working together, Eggman is an honorable ally who ultimately saves Tails's and Sonic's lives. I feel like this goes beyond simply helping them out of necessity and warrants mentioning here.

As Eggman himself put it, he's "a complicated guy."

Sonic X - Eggman talks an enraged Sonic down, and has his crew save Chris and Cosmo from the Metarex

In Sonic X, the Metarex commander Black Narcissus attacked Chris and Cosmo, which nearly drove Sonic into an unstoppable rage.

Cue Eggman stepping in to provide Sonic with some perspective and remind him not to lose his cool. He manages to calm Sonic down, informing him that he sent Shadow to rescue Chris and Cosmo, and that they're fine. Eggman then proceeds to berate Black Narcissus for his cruelty, saying in no uncertain terms that hurting innocent people is wrong, and humiliates the commander by having Decoe, Bocoe, and Bokkun beat him to the curb.

Eggman didn't have to do any of this. Saving Sonic's friends or even calming Sonic down didn't really provide him any strategic advantage. But he did, and then explained why: Because Black Narcissus crossed Eggman's own personal moral code, and the Doc wasn't having it.

Sonic X Comics - El Gran Gordo

After initially becoming a luchador as part of a get-rich-quick scheme, where the Doctor won matches by cheating, Eggman eventually grew to love the spectacle and public adoration of being a hero. So for a time, he stuck with the wrestling gig, without any villainous intent this time.

This lands him in trouble when the hulking Andes the Ginormous challenges Gordo to a fight and completely mops the floor with him. Without his robots and gadgets to help him cheat, Eggman is no match for the might of Andes, and is just about to tap out to save himself any more pain or humiliation... when suddenly, from the stands he sees the tears of his number-one fan, Chris, and hears him say exactly what Eggman has perhaps always needed to hear: "I believe in you."

Despite the pain, despite his exhaustion, and despite being ridiculously out-matched, Gordo gets his second wind, and through pure raw determination, defeats Andes the Ginormous, claims the championship belt, and lives up to Chris's idealistic expectations. Chris's hero refused to let him down, and even in a moment of weakness, found the strength to win.

The El Gran Gordo arc is also my favorite story in the entire Sonic franchise, and I know that over the past decade I've gushed about it enough times already. It's just so good.

Sonic X Comics - Eggman the Hedgehog

In Sonic X issue 37, Sonic and Eggman swap bodies.

Blessed with Sonic's newfound speed and power, does Eggman attempt to use the hedgehog's body to take over the world? Nope. Just the opposite: Eggman loves being Sonic, and being seen as a hero to the world (which echoes his temporary stint as El Gran Gordo), and - upon hearing the president was kidnapped - attempts to rescue him. He actually seems content being the hero, and wants to use the fame and glory Sonic already has as a jump-start to his brand new heroic career.

Now, this begs the question: If X comic Eggman wants to be a beloved hero to the masses so badly, why doesn't he just reform? Why go through the middleman of luchador disguises or hijacking your arch-enemy's body to live out a life of heroism? He could just be Eggman and be a good guy, especially since this particular version of Eggman is so driven by wanting love and adoration, which heroism gives him in droves.

Ah well, he's a complicated guy.

Sonic Boom - Eggman chooses Amy's friendship over personal gain

In "Fuzzy Puppy Buddies," Eggman and Amy discover that they share a mutual interest in a collectible tabletop game about adorable dogs. They spend the episode bonding and actually striking up a genuine friendship over their newfound hobby, working out an arrangement to still be enemies on the battlefield, but friends in their off time.

At PuppyCon, Eggman steals a puppy figurine, and Amy demands he do the right thing and give it back. So she challenges him to a game, wins, and gives Eggman an ultimatum: He can either return the figurine, or their friendship is over. Eggman hesitates at first, but relents, ultimately choosing Amy's friendship over the rare figurine he wanted. The episode ends with the two of them happily playing another game of Fuzzy Puppies in Eggman's base.

I like this episode, because it really gets at who Boom Eggman is. He's a lonely guy who wants friends more than a serious conqueror or evildoer. And when actually given friendship and positive reinforcement, he become a slightly better person.

Sonic Boom - Eggman the Wingman

In "Tails' Crush," Tails has a crush on Zooey the fox, and keeps getting astoundingly bad romantic advice from his friends about how to ask her out. Tails ultimately makes a fool of himself and gets no closer to truly expressing his feelings.

Eggman witnesses this shameful display and, declaring that "the bro code trumps the enemy thing," gives Tails some solid romantic advice: Be confident in yourself and quit trying to copy others. He then immediately launches into an attack on the village - he is a villain, after all - and Tails, taking Eggman's advice, regains his confidence and saves the day. He gets a kiss from Zooey and ultimately ends up in a long-term relationship with her for the rest of the show; and we can thank Eggman for giving Tails the push he needed.

Sonic Boom - Eggman saves Beth the Shrew

In "Don't Make Me Angry," Eggman's experiments go awry and lead to him temporarily transforming into an adorable little creature every time he gets mad. In order for the effects to wear off, Eggman must avoid getting angry for an entire 48 hours.

When Sonic realizes Eggman's condition, he takes pleasure in mocking Eggman for it - hoping to goad him into getting angry. Eventually he succeeds, causing Eggman to become the purple creature as the village laughs at his transformed state. But the young scientist-in-training, Beth the Shrew, takes pity on Eggman and doesn't mock him along with the other villagers. She shows up at his base with cookies a couple of days later to try to make him feel better; a gesture Eggman is touched by, despite the cookies themselves being rather unappetizing (they were made with toothpaste).

While exploring Eggman's lab, Beth accidentally falls into the trash compactor, which is automated and set to go off soon. Eggman frantically tries to save Beth from being crushed, but is too large to fit into the compactor himself. So he does the only thing he can: He goes out of his way to become angry so that he can morph into the purple creature, fit into the trash compactor, and pull Beth to safety. Initially, he has trouble doing this, and can't find any way to get angry in time - the futility of which itself ends up making him angry, allowing him to transform and save Beth from being crushed just in the nick of time.

This entire episode revolves around Eggman going out of his way - seriously doing everything he could, including morphing into a form he hates - to save a child's life. I think that's great.

__________

So, these are some of the immediate off-hand examples I had of Eggman doing outright good things without any villainous undertones.

Share your opinions! Do you like stories that show some of Eggman's nicer side? Do you prefer takes on him that are just evil without any redeeming qualities? Maybe somewhere in the middle?

Or maybe you just feel like talking in-depth about any of these specific examples? Or you'd like to add some of your own that I didn't cover? There's a lot to talk about here, so feel free to chime in from whatever angle you want! Reblog and add your own thoughts, or just leave a comment!

As for me, I love this stuff. Eggman showing a nicer, more humane side to himself is something I pretty much always enjoy seeing. So it's no surprise that X and Boom are my favorite takes on the character overall; even if I do also enjoy his more sinister incarnations in their own way.  In the end, I love that Eggman's a character with as much range as he has. Some stories can make him borderline-monstrous, while others give the impression that he could make a great hero if he'd just give up on world domination. And those latter stories are among my favorites in the Sonic franchise.

This is Dr. Mechano, hoping to bring you more Eggman Editorials in the future!