Sonic the Hedgehog IDW Comic Megathread

I don't know if I'd go that far. A fair number of Sonic's rivals have a decent enough foundation to give them interesting roles and dynamics, and when there's less for them to do they can just take a backseat while other members of the extensive cast get a turn in the spotlight. They don't have to jump a shark or be run into the dirt. Archie's Shattered World era gave Knuckles and Shadow things to do, and even let them butt heads for respectively sensible reasons. IDW's tried giving Blaze and Silver some character moments, even if the latter's presence in the present will probably never make total sense. Metal Sonic even gets some bits scattered across both series, either as Neo or something for Eggman to play off of. And Jet got to kidnap Jewel that one time because her shiny beetle parts looked like treasure.

Though with all that said... yeah, I do wonder what longer-term angles Surge could take without either losing her bite or going too far. Given recent events, my first thought is along the lines of vigilantism - may as well kick butt on the side with more applause and less backstabbers, but maybe kick a bit harder than Sonic would so the bad guys don't get back up so easily. I feel like that last part'd line up well with the dynamic Surge and Sonic had during their first encounter.

 

Honestly, she's the only active villain screaming narrative potential in comparison to the other rivals IDW's currently obviously not allowed to do anything substantial with. Not to say the rivals don't have potential, just that SEGA is way past restrictive with what can be done with their entire game-centric cast at the moment.

• On the villain side, Eggman is Eggman but effectively useless atm, Rough & Tumble are comedic goons with a substandard routine, Starline is dead and probably going to suddenly return Palpatine-style, Clutch is hanging onto whatever vestiges of story he's allowed to, and Decoy Octopus is gonna get shafted real soon in order to end this quick arc and pretend like something interesting is happening.
• For the rivals, Knuckles is constantly stuck on his dumb rock, Shadow has done nothing at all for his celebratory year (saving everything for the Manga?), Metal stopped having a glimmer of a developable personality once the Metal Virus arc passed and Scrapnik Island took that chance, Silver & Blaze and certainly alive, and Jet is an outlier by the fact that this arc relates to his whole shtick.

Surge, on the other hand, has retained my interest throughout her whole runtime. She's not a fresh baguette that's gone stale after a couple of days, this is like finding a perfectly preserved Captain America in the ice that could severely change up status-quo if left unattended. Not many from the roster have the speed, power and the mouth to match Sonic's own, nor have they come close to shutting him up and his ideals proper for good... The vague, untapped philosophical conversation (that writers aren't touching) of exactly who's ass she can and can't kick is an avenue for an incredible amount of stories!

This is, probably, the near-best case scenario. Provides ample opportunity to flesh out her identity in relation to and separation from Sonic, with the added bonus of butting heads both literally and figuratively. Note, she could use some more preaching and raving, I love that factor in these sortsa delinquent types.

 

Surge has the potential to be one of the more controversial figures in Sonic, for better or worse.
Edit: Like could you imagine having a character with a philosophy that is not vague and stands for something? Sheeesh...

 

That's exactly why they're probably never going to do anything with her lmao. We have people on this site who still bitch and moan about Shadow to this day about stuff from 20 years ago, and he's a game original character, ain't no way in hell Sega would allow that for a comic exclusive. And I think Ian understands that, for better or worse.

Surge hasn't worn out her welcome for me, especially given this is only her second major outing as a character, but she only really has two choices as a character; either fully commit to the bit and go completely over the edge, at which point they'll probably have to take her out so that she doesn't step on Metal Sonic's toes, or she commits to the antihero role and just does her own thing and occasionally interacting with the rest of the cast, lord knows they aren't doing shit with Shadow in that role.

@Iggy for Short That's fair, but Knuckles was more or less doing what he always does there, finding the Master Emerald shards and restoring his own status quo of sitting on a rock all day. With Shadow, they pretty much just did his game arc... again. And I have confidence that if they were to really do anything with Silver or Blaze, it'd just be retreads of their game arcs... again.

This is what makes me annoyed by Scrapnik Island, because Mecha Sonic essentially had the type of arc that Metal Sonic could have had, but obviously since the latter is a game staple and the former was essentially, pardon the pun, scrapped, it was much easier for that arc to work there.

What I think is gonna happen to Surge is that she's essentially going to get the better version of Shadow's arc and she'll probably end up sacrificing herself to finally become the good guy she always wanted. At least then it would validate Sonic's belief in people for once after she rejected him for all this time.

 

Looking forward for The Squid™ to eventually make its debut in the comic. Which character do you think will have the funniest reaction to it? My bet's on Tangle.

 

I don't know if you mean Shadow or the Sonic Frontiers enemy, but I don't think either will appear.

Sonic Frontiers' enemies seem to be isolated to the Starfall Islands, when Cyberspace was active, so unless Sonic and co. go back to said island I don't think it'll pop up.

Shadow Generations apparently takes place at the same time as Sonic Generations, and Shadow hasn't displayed any Doom Powers in other games. They'll either remove them at the end, keeping Doom and his powers locked in the White Space (probably answering how to kill an immortal being: you can't, but you can trap them in the void), or say he had them, but refuses to use them since they're the power of the Black Arms. At which point he's unlikely to use them in the comics for that same reason.

Or they just retcon it in that he had them this entire time, like Sonic's Dropdash in Sonic Origins. Either or.

As for the reactions, perhaps Whisper in a dark comedy way.
"Oh dear Gaia no, first the androids now he's a giant squid, please Gaia no..."

 

Yeah, I was referring to biblically accurate Shadow, as seen in the latest trailer.

With how much body-horror elements we've seen during the Metal Virus saga, I do believe there's a non-zero chance we might see him manifesting his Doom Powers sooner or later. Shadow may refuse to use them, but as someone once said, "Struggle all you want, you cannot deny your fate!".

 

Nah, I'm also of the opinion that Shadow's Doom powers will be sealed again at the finale of Shadow Generations - more than any adherence to continuity, I don't think SEGA wants anything that gives Shadow a permanent edge over Sonic when the two are supposed to be equals (you could argue he already has this with Chaos powers, but that cat's been out the bag since the beginning). Maybe they could show up in a future arc under specific circumstances, but I don't think it'll be something Shadow could theoretically choose to whip out whenever.

 

Honestly, I'd be damn surprised if the Doom Powers are ever acknowledged after this game. We already know that the Emerald Powers from Superstars are never going to be seen again, so I highly doubt that these are any exception, especially since they're directly related to a character who's quite literally dead.

 

To be fair, Sonic can use Chaos Powers as well, so...

 

I mean, yeah? That's what I meant when I said there's a non-zero chance for them appearing.

Whether his new abilities end up being sealed or not at the end of Generations is imho irrelevant. A good comicbook writer will always find a way.

Likewise, I'm not arguing either way regarding them becoming "permanent". All I'm saying is that it would be cool to see them referenced in a future issue.

 

Reminder that SEGA has final say. If they say no, it's no.

 

Just give Sonic angel powers

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I'm behind on this comic and forget where I left off. I know it was post issue 50. Shit, I dunno if they escaped Eggman city yet? Or maybe they did. The last thing I remember was the water dude going back with Surge. But that may have been tail end of that. Anyways, I'm curious as to how the series has been so far. I remember still thinking the series is OK at best which may have contributed to my fall off. Idk, I don't think it's about Flynn's writing, but now the confines of this new universe we're in because I remember loving the 30th anniversary special from a few years back. I obviously have about, like 2ish years of Sonic comics to catch back up on, but I am curious if the writing has improved.

 

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Do you want Umbra Witches? Because that's how you get Umbra Witches.

 

Solicits for #75 are out now, indicating it’ll be a double-sized issue and the end of the current arc, which makes sense for a milestone number. We’ll also be getting covers from Karasuno and Hesse.

This is all well and good, but what I’m really thinking about in light of this is if the book might be about to move past Frontiers in chronology. I think a milestone and ending of an arc is a good time to do it, and the next milestone issue, #100, would be dropping sometime around December 2026, during which time I imagine we’ll be in the throes of marketing for the next Sonic game. Granted, that could also be an opportunity to put the comic past Frontiers since everyone’s now focusing on the new stuff, but I feel like being able to introduce Sage to the comic would be a good way to keep Frontiers in the psyche for a bit longer until that next game happens. Of course, this is all just speculation, but Ian Flynn has said that we’ll recognise that the book has moved past Frontiers once it happens.

Perhaps unrelatedly, Evan Stanley put out this Tumblr post recently in which she talks about having turned in her biggest outline to date for IDW Sonic and that she feels she’s pushing the story in a direction that’s truly in her vision. Whether that has any relation to the book’s chronology remains to be seen but honestly isn’t particularly of interest to me in this context - I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Evan feels is a book that is “hers”, in a sense. While I’ve not loved her output as consistently as Ian’s, she’s turned in some cracking reads and hopefully this impending shift in direction will make IDW Sonic even more enjoyable.

It’s wild to think that we’re closer to the book’s 10 year anniversary than its launch back in 2018. While I don’t like to compare it to the Archie book too much as it is its own beast, I hope this longevity guides the book further to establishing a world as wide and rich as what was seen in latter-day Archie. Sure, it doesn’t have a cartoon to lean on for a fleshing out the cast and setting, but post-Genesis Wave Archie proved that even just tying together what’s presented in the games makes for a very compelling setting to be explored, and Sonic Team beginning to embrace all the Adventure era stuff again gives me hope.

 

Evan did mention moving past Frontiers earlier tonight, reiterating that we'll know it's happening when it does. Though the word she uses is "eventually", so it's anyone's guess as to whether that means after #75 or five years from now.

And yeah, the thing with IDW is that even before it was considered canon, it was written as much more of a companion piece to the games in the first place, but SEGA is annoyingly stingy about which parts of the games are allowed to play a role in it. I think a lot of people's problems with IDW would be satiated if it were portraying the world of the games, instead of just part of that world.

 

I remember watching a video that spoke about an ideal way the comics should be adapting the games. Right now, they're more like advertisements for the games as opposed to being expansions of them, which is what I feel most fans wanted from a game centric book.

A comic book is the perfect place to see things that are usually glossed over in the games, or what happens between them. But Sega are extremely annoyingly adamant at refusing to let the comic staff do anything with the series, even when they aren't doing anything themselves. Which leads me to...

It's more or less the same as it was then. A couple side stories here and there, but nothing you'd really call thematically resonant imo.

IDW's biggest flaw imo, at least compared to the better told stories in the games, is that it feels like there's no real theme or message to these stories.

It very much is a "Monster of the Week" type of deal where a new villain shows up, they get beat and then we move on to the next villain of the week.

It's fine for casual reading, but I just kind of stopped caring after a point.


To date, the best IDW story is Scrapnik Island. A concise story with a clear message being told. Which makes me question why Daniel Barnes hasn't been working on this book more.

 

Wait, so has it been confirmed that they won't be adapting Frontiers?
If so, that seems to be quite a bit of a fumble. Having Frontiers as the backdrop could give the comic some much needed focus, and it would be nice to have some insight into what the other characters were doing during the game's events. Sure, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy were the only ones present during the game, but that doesn't mean that the other characters simply stop existing.

There are many small stories that can be told on each island, things that would occur during what we would consider the gameplay portion of the game, rather than the actual cutscenes and story portion.

We could also have some build up, stories hinting at the Ancients, what set Eggman on the path to the islands, and what had Sonic and the gang going after him.

It would be a misstep to just timeskip the entire game.

 

I don’t see it. Games are much more accessible these days. Even if you’re not buying a game, it’s easy to read about or watch it online. I don’t think there’s anything in particular to be gained from retelling Frontiers when likely the majority of the readership has already played it at this point, two years after its release.

I think it’s much more intuitive to treat the comics as a supplement to the games that fits around them, and in that regard it doesn’t make sense to produce content for the comics that’s meant to be a substitute for those games.