Sonic the Hedgehog IDW Comic Megathread

"This is where I watched Maria die, Raphael."

 

Anyway, the Amy 30th Anniversary book is out. It's pretty cute as expected of something focusing on Amy.

I kind of like how Classic Amy, rather justifiably, is afraid of Metal Sonic. It kind of helps legitimizes his threat level a bit more imo.

 

Honestly I think classic Amy as she’s written in IDW is my favourite version of the character. She’s still crushing on Sonic but they defocus that and make her the kind of person who has a lot of love for everyone. I really love her dynamic with Bark and her + - defence of Ray as somebody who’s loyal, kind and caring   demonstrates just what I was talking about with regards to her characterisation.

+ - Having Amy’s team consist of herself, Ray and Bark was also a neat choice for this story - it’s a neat combo of characters that we’ve not really had lead a story before and avoids doing something we’ve seen before. The showdown with Metal at the end was also great and I like that Sonic clearly respects Amy enough to allow her to take the lead, tying nicely into her role as something of a team captain in the modern setting. I do however think having Sonic be captured due to carelessness as a way to give somebody else the spotlight twice on the trot is running the risk of getting tired and I really hope it doesn’t happen again in next years Knuckles/Fang special.  

 

Honestly Classic Amy highlights exactly what I find frustrating about her Modern version. Classic is allowed to be vulnerable and kind of pathetic, which just makes it more meaningful when she steps up like she did.

Like obviously I get its for the sake of differentiating both incarnations, but still, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing here.

 

Beautiful stuff here

 

https://x.com/idwsonicnews/status/1715226086663967142?s=46&t=HtIIgkr_GdKAVKonmDt0BA

Fang is getting his own miniseries starting next January! Don’t know if plans changed with him having a 30th anniversary special (potentially shared with Knuckles), but it’s nice to see all this love for a character we once thought was long since abandoned, not to mention getting more than one-shots for the classic setting.

Wait a minute…Fang, Bean and Bark in a comic together? Searching for rumoured eighth Chaos Emerald? Is this whole thing about to try and explain what was up with Sonic the Fighters?

 

Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it

 

Can we see all of her (please)

 

Ian Flynn confirmed this takes place after Fighters but before Superstars.

 

Phrasing.

While I would like to see Honey the Cat be more integrated into the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, I suppose they're worried since Honey's entire thing in Fighting Vipers is "attractive female whose clothes you can destroy", and I don't think that side of the fanbase needs more prompting...

 

Come on you know what I was going for.

Honestly I didn't even know that about Fighting Vipers. Honey’s just Honey to me. She’s a neat Easter egg in StF and Archie’s reimagining of her as a fashionista is a great addition to the character. She’s absolutely capable of standing on her own as a character whose design is homage to Candy while existing entirely independent of that character and game.

 

If they do bring Honey back, it'd be interesting to see how she compares to her Archie incarnation. From what I've seen, there's very little material that's been adapted by both Archie (252 onward, anyway) and IDW besides the core cast. The closest I can think of is "they both explicitly acknowledge that Sonic Heroes happened". (I guess Scourge and Surge are technically counterparts but only in the absolute broadest strokes.) Or maybe they'd rather avoid overlap?

 

SEGA understandably wanted a clean break from Archie and all its baggage (particularly of the legal kind), so in a lot of ways IDW just can’t do stuff Archie did. Wendy Witchcart is just Witchcart here, terms like “Mobius” are strictly off limits and Fang’s gang can’t be referred to as the Hooligans or Team Hooligan. Heck, it’s a bit of a miracle they’ve remained a gang and is probably only the case due to how much Archie defined them (same goes for Mighty and Ray). If Honey were to be readapted, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were to turn out markedly different from her Archie version.

 

Actually, she's likely to be adapted in the same way since Candy (we'll go with this to stop any confusion between the cat and the girl) in Fighting Vipers was there to show off her clothing to draw sales. The Archie adaptation was literally just adapting Candy's story.

Which is why I think they might be wary on focusing on her too much, since... y'know...

Spoiler: NSFW

 

Honey's connection to Fighting Vipers didn't stop them from putting her in the Archie Comics, so why would that stop them now?

 

I didn't say they wouldn't put her in, just that they might be worried about focusing on her too much due to Candy's 'appeal' and roots in Fighting Vipers, what with her the only one I recall having her be taken down to her underwear.

There's a reason she was the popular one...

 

You're stuck on this idea that I guarantee nobody gives a shit about in a way that's starting to look really weird, dude.

 

Honey's existence will always be funny to me.

"Check out my OC. She's a cat and she's just as cute as me! She's just as strong as Knuckles and has a +3 matchup against Fang!"

 

I don't see her connection to an ancient arcade fighting game as anything more than a "fun fact", I don't think anyone really cares about it enough for it to start a controversy.

 

Ian has said before that he's unsure if they'd be able to use Honey in the IDW comics (which Sega has been a lot more hands-on with than the Archie series) as a proper character (not just cameos thrown in by the artists) because she's a Sonic-ised version of a character from a separate Sega IP.

IDW has the Sonic licence, not the Fighting Vipers licence. The staff at Sega who oversee the comics are assigned to work on the Sonic series specifically, they may not be able to give the okay to using Honey the Cat without first getting the go-ahead from another department of Sega. Honey the Cat exists in what is potentially a grey area.

On the other hand, they were able to do a big NiGHTS homage in the Seasons of Chaos story. But NiGHTS is a Sonic Team character closely associated with Takashi Iizuka.