STC Sonic is the best version of the character by far. He's perfectly suited to a 1990s UK audience. It's also quite faithful to the games. Do you stop and wait for Tails in Sonic 2, or do you ignore him when he gets stuck or dies. He is pretty useless, but fun to laugh at from time to time.
Biggest surprise in the thread for me. Both are internationally known, both had animated works - Tintin was shown here a lot, and that was made in Canada!
Batman is oftentimes depicted as a jerk, even to his teammates and friends. As is Wolverine, who has had multiple comic series of his own, as well as a cartoon where he was the leader. And these are two of the most iconic comic characters ever. Anime has had its fair share of iconic jerk protagonists too, like Inuyasha or Lina Inverse. And for the record, Raphael was the leader in one of the more recent TMNT cartoons. This. The whole appeal of jerks with hearts of gold isn't seeing them punished. It's seeing that they actually care and their demeanor betrays how they feel. Actually you can find plenty of appearances of Christmas Tree Sonic in Archie in the years after they dropped the mohawk. It took them a while to get his quills right.
Tintin had some syndication attempts including Nickelodeon. Never heard much about the movie and apparently only 20% of its earnings were domestic despite apparently being a huge success internationally. It was just never that popular in the states. Asterix on the other hand is just outright obscure here.
Man that sucks, Asterix is the shit. If I may throw my hat in the ring: I don't think Sonic's characterisation in StC is particularly flawed or poorly written. Like all Sonic spin-offs back in the day, they had next to nothing to go with in the games when it came to plots or characters, so they more or less had to come up with their own version of Sonic from scratch, just like AoStH; SatAM; Archie... It's simply a different take on Sonic, one that didn't stick but is valid nonetheless. That being said, I honestly don't get people that try to depict StC's Sonic as some kind of misunderstood, deep character that hides his insecurities with snark and actually likes his friends a whole bunch. He's... a fucking asshole lol. And it's okay? There's a ton of good stories with flawed main characters. And his reputation in the fanbase has nothing to do with "out of context panels", Sonic his quite unambiguously a complete and utter douche in Fleetway
I like StC Sonic. He's a bit of an asshole, but still - he cares. That makes him interesting. Also, his Super form is a mass murdering maniac, and people seem to love it. Ahh i miss the 90's. Best we get now is a dumb version of Knuckles.
And Batman and Wolverine's most iconic interpretations are the ones where they're 100% unambiguously heroic. There hasn't been a truly unlikable depiction of either character in a long time. Same with Raphael, his latest incarnation that you're referring to is in fact one of the least antagonistic ones to date. Which only reinforces the point; nobody wants to watch an asshole main character. Neither Inuyasha or Slayers have anywhere near the widespread appeal that Batman, Wolverine or TMNT do, so that comparison doesn't work. IF Sonic was more niche, sure, but he is not.
And which version of the Turtles is the most iconic and referenced in modern media? I'll give you a hint, its not the Mirage Comics.
I think most American fans of Scrooge McDuck know him from DuckTales, both the 80s show and the 2017 reboot, where he's still a greedy hardass, but he still clearly gives a shit about his nephews and wants to do the right thing. He has flaws, but he's not unlikable. Your examples only highlight the contrast between what British/French/European people like in their protagonists, versus what Americans like. The only difference is that whereas Archie fans say that they simply don't like StC but that it's still a perfectly valid interpretation of Sonic, StC fans assert that if you don't like it, you just don't "get it" and that what you like is apparently a "sanitized goody-two-shoes". In addition to that: if you think the Mirage Comics versions of the turtles are assholes, think again. Yeah, they're assholes in the one-off first issue, I'll grant you, but their characterization changed not long after that to be more likable. Because Eastman & Laird knew those kinds of characters couldn't carry an ongoing series.
Maybe because the comic's main writer said so, and the stories themselves have shown that he deeply cares about his friends multiple times. When Super Sonic was getting out of control he exiled himself to keep his friends safe. When Johnny was murdered by Chaos he took it badly, blaming himself for not being able to protect him and exiling himself again. StC Sonic is unambiguously heroic. He never acted villainous or crooked. He always protected the innocent and fought evil. Wolverine rose to popularity when he started acting edgier. That is, he actually killed baddies with his own hands, er, claws, setting himself apart from 99% of the heroes in comics. Before that he was often overlooked by X-Men readers. Batman is in the current main pic for Good is Not Soft in TV Tropes, and has often been called out by his allies for being manipulative, paranoid and resorting to excessive methods. In the DC Animated Universe, the first Robin quit because he had enough of his assholeness. The straw that broke the camel's back was him interrogating and threatening a man in front of his wife and child. Batgirl would later call him out for being manipulative and express disgust at what he had become. And how did we go from "Nobody cares for stories with jerk protagonists" to "Not iconic enough for me"?
We're just arguing over opinions at this point and there's no sense in doing that since we clearly don't see eye to eye on this. If you don't see anything wrong with how Sonic behaves in STC and think people are "overreacting" then so be it. I'm just saying, there's kind of reason there's so much pushback against him despite his "heroic" actions. Moreso than any other version of Sonic, STC!Sonic is the one that stands out as the one who gets the most flak for their attitude.
Rick and Morty. I'm cultured so I know Asterix exists (even before Sega Retro!), but I can't say I've seen the characters in my day-to-day life in a while. Maybe there's still strips in some newspapers, but if struggles to penetrate in the UK, I could see it being a problem getting to the US. They had a big push with Tintin with that CG film a few yea- wait 11?... 11 years ago, but it was always bigger on the continent. It feels like someone comes along every few years with a big wad of cash to point out how great the books are, and the collective response is "meh". These things go in waves. When this episode of The Simpsons aired in 1996, The Muppets hadn't done anything substantial in ages (apparently 1992's Muppet Christmas Carol wasn't the massive box office success expected). But later in the year, you'd get both Muppet Treasure Island and Muppets Tonight and it became a "thing" again.
Dragon Ball is funny because that's been a huge point of contention lately surrounding Goku's character.
I'm sort of hot and cold with asshole characters. It's like any characteristic, it can get overbearing if taken to eleven without anything moderating it. There's too many jerks that seem to be just written for the purpose of "Wow, what an asshole!" audience reponses more than actual entertainment value. I feel that's the vibe I sometimes get from STC Sonic and some other 90s versions of Sonic, just trying too hard to make him an anti-goody goody rather than just having an organic 'attitude'. Boom Sonic is one of my favourite takes on Sonic and he definitely has moments of intense narccisism or Garfield-level snide to him (to the point he's actually comically "lost" a few stories he acted that badly), but it feels like there's more consistently a point to it and they don't feel the need to go extreme with it just because. You can see why anyone would stand being around him.
Once again, I stress: the problem people have isn't when they're assholes. The problem is when those assholes never get called out in-universe for being assholes, suffer consequences for it, and learn from it, which Rick, Yusuke, and even Goku do pretty regularly (I haven't read Berzerk, so I can't comment on it). Rick's flaws are pointed out pretty clearly by other characters and he KNOWS his own flaws, and he tries to make up for them at some points. While his flaws are practically celebrated during the show's third season and beyond, that was not the case during the first two. Yusuke realizes he's an asshole and wasted his life being an asshole during the very first episode where his comeuppance comes in the form of nobody grieving for him at his funeral, and other characters ridicule him for his attitude multiple times throughout the series. Usually when Yusuke is an asshole to people in the Dark Tournament arc and beyond, it's because they kinda deserve it, like Hiei. Goku is an asshole because he's literally a child, and when he continues to be an asshole into adulthood and fatherhood, he's criticized for it regularly by his wife, his children, and his friends. When Piccolo points out that he essentially sent his 12yrold son to get the snot pummeled out of him by Cell, that's a rare moment where he realizes he fucked up. Do you see a pattern here? Sonic in StC doesn't have any moment like that. Not once during the entire series is he ever seriously criticized for how he treats others, particularly Tails. Not once does he ever have a moment of introspection. Not once does he ever suffer any consequences. While characters will occasionally point out that he says something mean, Sonic's response is always "lol get over it". And they do. And it's either never brought up again, or it's treated as if Sonic is right, somehow. In conclusion:
Asshole characters primarily work for me when there's a story being told with them, and their dickish nature actually has consequences. Berserk works because Gut's life, quite frankly, fucking sucks. Like his life is just the actual worse, him pushing people away is kind of a logical conclusion of the type of life he's in. But he slowly, but surely works his way out of his hole and grows closer to his comrades over time. And the moments he relapses into his old ways have severe consequences of pushing the people he cares about away. It's a matter of execution and justification really; with Sonic? As far as I can tell, there's really no apparent reason for him to treat his comrades so coldly. There's no apparent trauma he's dealing with, and sure, an inability to express emotions is a good character flaw, but it kind of works better when said flaw has some severe consequences. I believe the online continuation actually addresses this and has the entire world turn on Sonic because of his attitude, with the exception of Tails and I'm like "God, finally"
I feel even Rick sometimes struggles with this problem in while he is clearly an in-universe jerk and routinely called out on it, his badassery and word smithing abilities generally tend to just overpower it, at least in earlier seasons where he nearly always wins. He doesn't really have many worthy opponents who can put him in his place and threaten him with real repurcussions, and I feel this sometimes is the same issue with Sonic. People wag their fingers at his meanness but they can't do much else. He has the thick skin and power to just blank it. Like this isn't even just exclusive to STC Sonic. Even outwardly nicer versions like X Sonic got away with whatever they wanted and anyone who tried to put him in his place usually ended up his butt monkey.
