Sonic the Hedgehog IDW Comic Megathread

I'm not all upset there won't be any crossing over with the previous comics. I haven't read any of them and I imagine most of the crossover stuff would fly over my head.

 

Not just Tekno, Sonic the Comic's Amy, Ebony and Pyjamas were there as well.

Edit: Also, Metamorphia, I see you hiding back there!

 

How on earth did remember this hyper specific panel and where to find it

 

Because I research lore. Issue 134, by the way.

 

Rebellion doesn't have the rights to Sonic the Comic: https://twitter.com/Alex_Hedgefox2/status/1661107989736988695

You'd need to ask Sega and IDW.

But since Nigel Kitching and the others apparently never signed work for hire contracts, deals may have to be worked out with them.

 

Then SEGA and IDW it is. Also, no excuse for no multiverse now.

And considering two are doing a comic now...

 

That issue is also quite... *ahem*... infamous in Archie Sonic circles.

 

After grabbing a Humble Bundle some years back, reading through the post-reboot stretch of Archie comics was a real treat for exactly that reason. It was fascinating seeing disconnected pieces of Sonic's history, some of which I'd barely heard of, brought together and fleshed out to form a coherent world. The "Champions" arc in particular was a great example of this: A Sonic the Fighters adaptation (complete with Honey the Cat), a reworked Breezie from AoStH with backstory ties to a mid-Heroes Neo Metal Sonic, all while serving as part of the larger Unleashed-based "Shattered Worlds" storyline. And with a lot of fun character interactions to boot.

...shame we lost that continuity in favor of one following in Forces's footsteps, even if what I've caught of IDW's original characters and their respective plotlines has been interesting enough. (Come to think of it, that's a little humorously fitting: The most interesting part of a Forces-based comic being the original characters. )

 

Okay that’s all pretty fair actually, I’ll admit my original reading of what you’d said was uncharitable.

And I completely get it tbh - that post-reboot window of Archie was golden in its reformatting of the Freedom Fighters and the SatAM setting to bring it in line with the games. Like others, I loved Champions and I was gutted when the Archie book was canned.

I understand why people are tepid on the IDW book using Forces as its jumping off point, but I think it’s ultimately a product of the context of the series as it currently is. Obviously Archie (and StC for that matter) started up at a time when Sonic was so much more mercurial and could draw up on the established concepts of SatAM and AoStH (though, to its credit, StC started out quite faithful to what Sonic presented at the time). IDW of course launched in a time long since the advent of brand synergy as a driving force, likely a byproduct of the boom of the MCU. It was unfortunately never going to be able to pull together a grand tapestry of *everything* Sonic, and I do think the diminished established setting to draw up on (i.e. only having the games as a base rather than expanded media) does make the world feel smaller, especially with the hesitation to really take advantage of established world building within the series (Archie’s The Chase story is good with this), again a product of the time in which SEGA *really* didn’t want to acknowledge series history.

Despite all this, I think IDW is getting there, in spite of its limitations. It’s done a lot in 60 issues, establishing a coterie of new, quality characters, the majority of whom slot perfectly alongside those from the games, not to mention expanding and developing Forces’ resistance and backstory far more than the games ever did. And now we’re seeing stuff like the Warp Topaz and Eggman’s extra-dimensional tech become persistent concepts.

I think the IDW setting can be every bit as rich as the Archie setting was, it just requires willingness from SEGA to fully embrace the entire series history. Again, we’re starting to get this with stuff like Scrapnik Island, but I think what we’re missing is the human element, which does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of establishing the geography and culture of Sonic’s Earth, hence why I reckon IDW’s setting feels less real. I think bringing the human continents and G.U.N. back into the picture someday will do a lot to remedy that, but it’s clear that SEGA’s vision is the limiting factor here.

 

Plenty of "excuses" for multiverse, up to and including, simply, that they might not want one. Also, don't take facebook messages from representatives of comics 20 years after they were cancelled as gospel. Very much do not take it as certain that somehow there's no legal issues holding this material back, especially considering its authors have claimed ownership in the past.
Please read the comic for what the comic is, and let us do a celebration of the history of these comics through celebrating the people who did them, including bringing back a writer and artist who've not done work officially with this character for decades, rather than grouch because well, it didn't match unreasonable expectations.
There's no multiverse happening. And considering how beaten that horse is, that's a good thing.

 

Here is a quote from February but I think it's worth sharing now.

22:06

 

Not that simple.

Consider what IDW have been doing with Ninja Turtles. Before Peter Laird sold TMNT to Nickelodeon/Viacom, he got his ducks in a row acquiring the rights to the comics/stories/characters from "guest" creators on Mirage Studios' TMNT comics. One creator who didn't agree to sell his work over was Rick Veitch, so IDW can't reprint those issues.

"Why don't they just make a deal with Rick Veitch?", you might ask.

http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=40219

The more parties that are involved, the more complicated it becomes. And so IDW have only reprinted the TMNT comics that Nickelodeon/Viacom have unambiguous full ownership of.

They also haven't, to my knowledge, reprinted any of the UK original Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles comics that were published by Fleetway (their series being a mix of Archie TMNT reprints and original stories, due to it being on a fortnightly schedule and needing more stories). Many of those had art by Richard Elson as well.

 

Also, like, they're allowed to just not put that stuff in. StC doesn't exactly have perfect parity with the main series! If they want it to be consistent or not look really weird and off (like SEGA tends to want) they'd have to do some serious tinkering, and at a certain point they may not consider it wholly worth the effort. That's why I'm more annoyed at the loss of the Reboot-verse, since it was designed to align with a lot of SEGA's rules from the start (also because SEGA definitely does have the rights to all of that).

 

I think Shaddy may specifically be referring to designs and, certainly, if it were a true crossover that needed the StC cast to properly gel with the mainline verse, I could understand that.

 

Richard Elson has already worked with Sega recently and proven he can be more on model than before.

 

I wasn't meaning to imply anything about Elson's skill, just that the aesthetic defined for StC and it's characters and concepts really doesn't match the modern series.

 

Richard Elson talked about how his cover was initially rejected by Sega of Japan:



18m 20s

They rejected it and wanted him to redraw it a particular way. He said no. Then they said they'd accept it as long as he redrew Tails, which he did.

 

IDW Q&A from the STC convention: