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Sonic the Hedgehog IDW Comic Megathread

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Dark Sonic, Jan 22, 2018.

  1. This is actually a point I hadn't considered but yea, it is in line with the general Sonic aesthetic.

    And note, this is not to disparage Archie or Fleetway at all, but notice how their male heroic characters were very accessory and detail heavy. Its rather apparent with Scourge, who shares Sonic's general design, but decked out in leather and a SCAAAAR. Its why I feel like Surge ends up having a much better design, because while she's reminiscent of Sonic, the details make them completely different. Its kind of the difference between Shadow's concept designs where he looked far more like Sonic than his final one which ends up making him look far more distinct even if he still resembles Sonic heavily.
     
  2. _Sidle

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    Issue 50 coming out made me want to make a little visual for the little arcs and major sagas. Had a realization: there's no agreed upon name for the (ongoing) third major saga, is there?

    upload_2022-6-30_22-20-48.png

    It's gone on longer than Metal Virus at this point, but somehow I've never heard a title for it ever. What would you all call it?

    oh my goood, Scourge totally is the Terios of Surge, design-wise :V
     
  3. charcoal

    charcoal

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    What's the best way to get all the issues in one place? I've been wanting to read IDW for a long time now but never got around to it, but I've decided I'm gonna get around to it with all the hubbub around issue 50.
     
  4. Kyro

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    Outside of definitely not legal websites which have every issue of the comic on them, IDW's website has every issue available for online reading and the older issues are much cheaper now. They also have a mobile app
     
  5. Starduster

    Starduster

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    I don’t really think everything since Out of the Blue has really been as tightly knit in terms of being a saga, even if each arc has had elements leading up to #50. Chao Races & Badnik Bases and Zeti Hunt both had their own thing going on with Starline’s machinations just going on in the background. At any rate, I think Battle for the Eggman Empire, taken from #50, works well enough.


    You’re best off seeking out the collected volumes since they cost much less than buying each comic individually. In fact, I think the entire Metal Virus Saga may be collected in one book. In terms of where to actually buy the books, that depends on your preference. Being in the UK, I buy digital to cut out waiting and delivery times, but this pretty much forces me to buy from Amazon/Comixology since there’s no comparable app and IDW’s own app apparently isn’t stellar. If you’re in America I imagine you can buy back issues from IDW’s website or something.
     
  6. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Oh God yea the comic artists really know how to make Eggman look intimidating

    Also apparently according to a bumblecast

    Starline's dead. RIP, I liked him
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2022
  7. Starduster

    Starduster

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    Do we have an actual audio clip to back this up? The latest episode came out on the same day as the comic so I highly doubt they would’ve talked spoilers so soon. The closest thing to evidence I’ve seen so far is a screenshot of an alleged message from Kyle in the BK discord server, but that could be faked or Kyle simply pulling our leg.

    Assuming the spoiler is true however, I’m in two minds.

    On the one hand, I love Starline and everything he’s done for this story. The Tricore has been a very interesting tool that allows Starline to go toe-to-toe with most of the cast, and the guy’s just a glorious bastard in general who really could’ve set up a more enduring faction now Eggman has made it clear to him that he will never accept Starline’s “help”.

    On the other hand, I suppose this feeling shows that Starline’s writing was so solid in the first place and that his death would be an effective one. If people are waiting for a character to die, then they’ve probably outstayed their welcome. Furthermore, this does establish Eggman is very much a threat to anyone who doesn’t have SEGA branded plot armour. While he did make life hell for people during the Metal Virus Saga, I think it’s a decision like this that will get more people talking about this book, like this board did back in the Archie days. I just wish his victim had been Belle instead. And honestly, when she goes it could get really gruesome given she’s a robot made of wood and gears.
     
  8. The KKM

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    Well, multiple people are involved in each, but it's also down to preferences.

    I prefer simple designs. I tried making Surge so sparse of detail that Sega asked for more detail. This is because I've a specific background and preferences with Sonic- classic influence, sprites-based, etc. Others who've designed other characters have other influences, preferences, and habits, and so prefer more complex designs, or a miriad other creative choices. And then of course, Sega gets their input, editorial gets their input, the writer gets their input.

    So tldr I get what you're saying, and in theory it's possible for the characters to be simpler (though again- Sega asked for more detail. Consider that Sega's own designs get more complex with time- my original Surge stuff would've been simpler than Silver or Infinite), but some of the artists simply don't have the taste for it- not in a sense that they hate it, just they prefer other directions.
     
  9. RDNexus

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    Sure sucks when there's meddling in-between. Anyway, keep up the good work.
     
  10. Vertette

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    I get why the Sonic characters have gotten more detailed over time (except the Deadly Six but let's ignore those), considering it was much harder to portray the kind of detail Surge's design has on a low resolution output with a sprite roughly 32x32 pixels big. Now that the char designers can say nuts to that, you might as well make good use of it. That said I do think the newer Sonic designs, as well as the IDW characters, still strike a good balance between having enough detail to easily discern their personalities/role in the story and being simple enough a child could draw their designs from memory.

    Also preaching to the choir here, but Eggman was fantastic in #50.
    I hope Starline stays gone because I like the character but I also like for death to mean something. I know it's Sonic where any character popular enough grows 50 sheets of plot armor but let us have this one :(
     
  11. Roller

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    It's a death in a comic book. If you didn't see the corpse (and sometimes even if), there's always the potential for a future writer to choose to sidestep it, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't have enough experience with the medium.

    But likewise, this seems like a pretty solid beat to end his story on, whether for now or forever. I suspect he'll stay gone for at least two big arcs, hopefully more, so that a return means something when it happens. And the best part is that this kind of loose story seeding is the heart of what allows ongoing comics to have long-form consequences and self-referential evolution.
     
  12. SuperSnoopy

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    Question to Archie Sonic readers: how do you think they'll handle Sonic Frontiers?

    It's the first mainline game to come out since the comic started, and I'm curious how its story is going to be integrated to the comic.
    Is it going to get its own arc? A passing mention? Or get ignored altogether?

    I never read the Archie comic, so I'm really curious as to how they treated each new Sonic game coming out.
    Especially since they used to be yearly, which wouldn't leave much space for original stories if they had to adapt every new game releasing.
     
  13. Dark Sonic

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    Archie comics never really went into the games with their main plots. The only time they really did was Sonic Adventure 1, which despite Archies plot spins they actually stuck pretty close to that plot, although to get there they had to so some weird things (because you gotta explain those redesigns! Sonic got green eyes and shoe buckles because he hauled ass with a super Emerald and that happened, Amy wished herself older on a magical royal ring, and Robotnik wasnt Robotnik but Ken Penders original character Robo Robotnik, a Robotnik from an alternate dimension where he defeated Sonic, but Sonic caused him to blow up but because hes a robot he downloaded himself into a new body which just happens to be SA1 Eggman... everyone else just got colored eyes eventually lol, OH but Knuckles becomes Jesus down the line that was fun). Post soft reboot they did some more loose adaptations, like they did an Unleashed arc and a Sonic the Fighters arc tucked away within the Unleashed arc (only instead of Fighters plot they were fighting in a casino tournament hosted by Breezie, the AoStH characters who Archie made into like a business woman which ngl I kinda love what they did with her). Pre soft reboot save for SA1, they did separate mini stories around the games release or occasionally gave a game a whole issue of either the main series or Universe (Sonic and Sega all Stars Racing and one of the Sonic at the Olympics games come to mind, SA2 was weird I seem to recall them almost starting that plot in the main comic and then it just kinda fizzled out). Like Riders and Generations got the "in another time in another place" treatment.

    So basically Archie advertised the games but didn't really integrate them into the story (except for SA1). As far as what IDW does with Frontiers we're in new territory.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2022
  14. SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    So basically...Archie Sonic was complete fucking mess and we have no idea how they're gonna tackle Frontiers? Aight then, I can live with that

    (I also really want to know about the whole Knuckles jesus thing, but I just KNOW it's gonna involve Penders so I'll refrain from asking for the sake of what little sanity I have left)
     
  15. BlackHole

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    Perhaps they'll go the Sonic the Comic route and adapt it in with the forewarning they have. They literally share a writer, so...
     
  16. Dark Sonic

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    Yup Archie Sonic was a complete fucking mess and you're right to be wary of Knuckles Jesus :V

    Oh and another thing post soft reboot Archie did. In that lore a lot of the games already happened even though they never did pre soft reboot, but Eggman tampering with Sonic's chaos control attempting to stop Eggman's ultra Genesis Wave or whatever it was called (Eggman was trying to essentially rewrite the universe as he saw fit with Dr. Wily, Sonic tried to stop it, Eggman interfered and then at the end of that arc you literally see Sonic's old universe shatter before everything turns to white) resulted in a weird hybrid universe of sorts. So Colors for example happened and they even start referencing it, but there were no issues where there was a Colors arc for example.

    Thats actually how this Unleashed arc started. Eggman's tampering caused the planet to become unstable since it was merging two versions of itself into one kinda. That universal shattering also destroyed all the old dimensions/zones, so it effectively killed Scourge, Zone Cops, and a lot of Penders other creations.

    God writing this out makes me remember that Archie was a MESS
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2022
  17. Starduster

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    The thing is, Archie generally presented the games as being a separate canon, but would then take elements from the (particularly characters of course) to use anyway, such as Jet. I think it's a pretty messy way of doing things and doesn't hold up to much scrutiny and it's why I'm a big advocate for properly integrating the core canon into the comic canon, if not the other way round. Of course, spoilers are still a thing, which will be doubly true with Frontiers. A Frontiers arc running concurrently with the release of the game just wouldn't be a good idea, since those with the game would be experiencing it twice and those without it would need to go through spoilers just to keep up with the book. As such, I think the best solution is to have a time skip after the end of whatever arc is running during Frontiers' release window and then mention in a text panel at the beginning of the next arc that Frontiers took place within the interim. This way the comic can easily take what it wants from Frontiers without having to commit to a full adaptation of it. Given that the media pillars of Sonic are closer than they've ever been, with Ian's hands being in both pies, I certainly hope this'll be the case. I guess I'm just the kind of person who likes to imagine that the comic is just what we don't see in the games.
     
  18. SuperSnoopy

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    Yeah that would be the best way of doing it I think.
    The Dragon Ball Super manga did something similar, mentioning the events of DBS: Broly in a panel basically saying "it happened, it's canon" but not dedicating a whole arc to it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2022
  19. Vertette

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    Seeing as Sonic Team already struggles (or just don't care that much) to keep the games in line with each other, let alone the comic on top, I think it's likeliest that the comic will (try its best to) integrate the games' canon into its own while the games won't acknowledge the comics outside of a few cameos. They probably won't ever outright go against the comics' events, but having to keep track of both the comic's and the games' stories to keep the whole thing coherent is a big undertaking that only a few dozen people could or would appreciate.
     
  20. Starduster

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    I think "a few dozen" massively understates the popularity of the comic but I do concede that the games don't need to work around the comic, it'd just be nice and it'd give me hopium for seeing Tangle and Whisper in a game that isn't an abusive skinner box simulation with a terrible P2W economy.