Sonic the Hedgehog IDW/Current Western Comic Megathread

Those revivals are mainly due to the nature of the American comic book industry where there isn't a set writing team throughout a character's entire history. You have a rotating crew of editors and writers, each wanting to make their own mark, like bringing back dead characters they loved, during their run. That's why you end up with these brain dead revivals like they did with Kraven the Hunter.
I'm not knowledgable on how Ian Flynn treats "retired" characters (I didn't read the Archie comics) or if he clashes with IDW editorial too much. It would most likely fall on him since he's the head writer.

 

Ian isn’t the head writer anymore, and hasn’t been in around 30 issues. That title belongs to Evan Stanley now.

 

What's Evan's track record?

 

Going by her fancomic Ghosts of the Future, she'll kill a character off and keep them dead, but bring them back in some other form.

Which... is pretty much what's happening with Starline, come to think of it. He's dead, but back in another form.

 

While this is true, and why I'm not a big fan of superhero comics in particular*, Sonic IDW's writing team hasn't been very inconsistent. While people have had their gripes with Sonic IDW, some of which I would agree with, I wouldn't say it's been wildly inconsistent in quality in the same way your average Marvel or DC series can be.

*To clarify I do like certain runs of certain superheroes don't get mad

 

That's why I was asking about the track record. I'm not familiar with the Archie comics or the current IDW run up until halfway into the Metal Virus arc. From the staff credits I've seen, it's been a mostly the same small circle from the start so I'd imagine they would probably have a tighter grasp on what goes on in the comics when compared to the big two publishers.

 

I can't say I've read much of Archie beyond Endgame myself, but at the very least I think IDW has been pretty consistent. It's had some pretty memorable moments, but mostly it's just been decent.

That's a lot more consistent than the crud I've read from Marvel and DC so I'd say it's an improvement at least.

 

I haven't read ALL of Archie, but I've read a bunch of it.

Writers before Ian would kill off and bring back characters all the time. Sally was supposed to die during Endgame, but Penders rewrote the story so she didn't die due to fan backlash. Tommy Turtle died and came back multiple times.

Ian didn't tend to kill off and revive dead characters as far as I can remember. Actually, one of his first major Arcs (The Darkest Storm) was actually all about cleaning up dangling plot threads and resulted in the permanent deaths of 2 characters (Sir Connery and Tommy Turtle)

He also killed off Knuckles' father Locke and he stayed dead as well.

For the record, these characters were all considered heroes* in the narrative and were considered heroic deaths. I can't recall any villains dying off the top of my head...

*(I know there's debate about Locke, but he was framed as a hero until he was framed as misguided, and then a hero again. He's a hero from the story's perspective, even if we don't like him.)

 

From what I've heard, Sally Acorn was apparently revived by higher-ups at SEGA, who had plans for her that never really came to fruition, not fan backlash.

 

They could just go the "Dr. Gero" route and have Starline come back ad a cyborg or something

 

Oh I'd hate that. Part of why I hate Shadow's Vegetaing and Surge and Kitsuname's backstory being changed to be the Androids as well: if I want to watch Dragon Ball, I'll go watch Dragon Ball.

And yes, I'm aware the series has taken inspiration since time immemorial, resulting in Super Sonic, but there's a difference in inspiration, where Super Sonic requires the Chaos Emeralds and such while Super Saiyan is a quick "hyaaaa!", and basically copy and pasting characters over.

I find what they're doing more interesting, Surge having a mental ghost of Starline harassing her, over bringing him back to do...?

 

Well Shadow wasn't "acting like Vegeta" in his latest appearance and Surge and Kit act nothing like Androids 17 and 18, so I don't really get the complaint.

I don't like Sonic being furry DBZ as much as the next guy, but at this point you may as well just embrace it given how ingrained in the DNA of the series it is.

 

Wow, Blaze is finally in a thing for more than a few seconds! Sonaze shippers are gonna eat it up.

I have no idea why the games can invent excuses to bring back Silver but not her.

 

Peak. 10/10. No notes.

 

I guess they think Silver looks cooler as background character that stands around doing nothing number 65™

 

Apparently Sega sees getting Blaze out of her dimension harder to justify for a story than Silver coming from the future

 

Blaze is the ruler of a Kingdom, so she has implied responsibility, whereas Silver comes from a ruined future, so can be justified as him nudging time.

I still maintain they should have just said Ifrit destroyed his future in Sonic Rivals 2, and he stays in the present to ensure nothing else can come along and threaten it after sealing the Ifrit. Give him survivors guilt or something if you want.

 

Blaze is currently free of a crisis in her kingdom, so she's free to take an extended vacation in the comics right now. If they wanna keep making simple excuses like that for me to have more of her in the stories, I'm good with that lol.

 

I feel like Sega sees Silver as a higher priority than Blaze, so he gets a bit more preferential treatment while Blaze... doesn't.