SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I wasn’t originally going to make a part 2, but I’ve been
following discussion on the IDW Sonic comic and I’ve actually been noticing
…..Opinions are a lot more split on some things than I anticipated.
Particularly reboot or not, I’m kind of noticing that that there’s a lot more
discussion regarding the merits of the freedom fighting characters and members
of the Archie or old cartoon casts. A lot of people seem to want them removed
or for them not to not appear in the new book for various reasons.
…………Well to be honest being a long time reader of the comic
and naturally having become a fan of said characters, I kind of feel as If some
of the arguments I’ve been seeing are pretty dubious and in some cases overly
extreme. Considering that I felt like I needed to expand my original blog and
address the freedom fighter situation directly, which hopefully you guys find
to be fairly well thought out.
Anyway I’m going to put on my phoenix write coat and try and
bring up some counter arguments for why I think removing the FF and Archie
characters(at least fully) is a bad or fairly ill thought out idea.
1.
The
freedom fighters are to obscure and irrelevant and have needed to be cut for
years now
1993
vs 2017
Ehhhhhhhhhhhh? I get that Satam has been canceled for over
20 years now and that’s where the FF originated from, but I wouldn’t exactly
call the characters from it obscure or irrelevant. 24 years is a REALLY long
time to run a comic, and these characters where major players in it for the
entirety of the run. By all accounts Sally Acorn has gotten more media and screen
time collectively than almost the entire game cast at this point and predates
all of them besides Sonic, Tails and Eggman. I would also point out that
truthfully speaking a lot of the game cast hasn’t been what I would call
“relevant” in recent times either(if we’re just talking about just game cannon).
Sega’s pretty much dialed things back to just Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails and
maybe Shadow, with everyone else barely even showing up outside playable status
in sports/racing games. Heck the last major game to actually have the side
characters have larger speaking roles and story arcs was probably Sonic 06 or
one of the Sonic rivals games nearly 10 years ago.
At best this is probably more of an argument that could be
reasonably levied at a worldwide audience, given I’m sure the comics didn’t get
consistent translations in Japan and I know for a fact they were not readily
available in Europe for a long period of their run. But to be honest I’m not
really sure how much that argument stands when you consider IDWs comic will
probably be in a similar boat anyway.
I also feel that there’s a big elephant in the room that
very few people are acknowledging. These characters most certainly aren’t
obscure or irrelevant to the people who actually bought and read the Archie
comics all these years. That user base was enough to support at some times 4
comics at once, and would have continued to support the comic quite handily if
it had not been canceled. It stands to reason that most of those people are
probably going read the IDW comic when it comes out and realistically that
install base is going to notice if half the characters get gutted from the
comic permanently. Heck fans of Archie already reacted badly to the first
reboot as well and there was a dip in sales because surprisingly people don’t
like having characters or plots ripped out from under them like that. Granted
you could make an argument that fans who were turned off by Archie will give
the new comic a try, creating a new fanbase. However I still feel like most of
the people who actually wanted Sonic comics were probably already buying the
previous series, and that expecting there to suddenly be a new untapped market
for a franchise as hit or miss as Sonic is a risky endeavor.
Finally I have to point out that this isn’t like Shadow or
Amy or whatever not showing up in the latest Sonic game. Fans of these
characters KNOW that if they don’t show up again in this new comic, then they might
never show up in anything ever again. That’s a big reason why there inclusion
is such a big point of contention for people.
2. The freedom fighters and original cast are
a spotlight stealing squad
Not really seeing
their promotion here
If I’m being honest I actually don’t get the complaints
about the freedom fighters or any other Archie exclusive characters being spotlight
stealers. Like MAYBE this could have applied over a decade ago before Ian’s era
when the book was oversaturated with echidna characters and melodrama, but Sega
had made it a point to give the game characters top priority in the last 10
years. Case and point it was almost IMPOSSIBLE for a non-game character to
headline an issue of Sonic Universe.
Like if you look at that list you can pretty clearly see the
stars of each arch were almost always Sonic, Knuckles, Silver, Blaze, Shadow or
Eggman. We only got two arcs focused on Satam or Archie characters over 10
years, which were Scourge and Nicole respectively. Though even then Scourge is
basically just another version of Sonic, several Sega characters where involved
in Nicole’s arc, and both arcs mostly happened due to both characters becoming
highly requested ensemble dark horses to begin with.
This was also pretty true for the main comic as well, particularly
after the reboot. Like most of the Satam and Archie original cast didn’t even
show up during the first crossover with Megaman. None of them even fought in the Sonic the fighter’s
adaption that happened. Eggman was pretty firmly established as having to be
the main villain in the comic and many other villains had some connection to
him. It was also pretty clear Sonic was front and center traveling around the
world, except with slightly more characters accompanying him than in the games.
It’s not like the series was full of Chris Thorndike’s that were constantly
dragging focus away from Sonic for nefarious reasons, or being pushed for
inclusion in situations where it didn’t make much sense.
3. Sega should just focus on what’s cannon and
current
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and
I disagree. In fact I STRONGLY disagree as thought processes like this are the
exact reason why so many reboots/relaunches these days fail or are terrible. I understand
the modern games always come first, but Sonic has never been a franchise based
only around games. Satam is a big part of its history and got tons of promotion
back in the day. Adventures is part of its history. So is fleetway, the ova,
underground, Sonic X, Boom and yes Archie. Heck on that note all the obscure
games and characters from earlier in Sonic’s franchise are also a part of his
history. Many people grew up and experienced these media and have fondness for
parts of them. Likewise many of them have ideas, characters or concepts that
are worth preserving or retooling.
A failure to
acknowledge and respect ones older fans and history, as well as not actively
preserving parts of your history people enjoyed in the past is a perfect what
to fuck up a reboot or stagnate a series. Case and point look at the Powerpuff
girls, Ben 10 and Teen titans go. A lot of these series fail to understand what
aspects made the series before them popular in the first place and also didn’t
respect what older fans wanted, and suffered critically because of it. Anime’s
like Pokemon also stagnate and are constantly called out due to often not
wanting to acknowledge their past or not growing much based on past history.
In contrast it’s normally the reboots that learn and
incorporate old material, along with new that succeed. Two examples that come
to mind are probably Bataman TAS and the old Ducktales cartoon. Both were
inspired by a medium built mainly around comics, but were popular cartoons
adaptions that had their own original characters like Harley Quin and Launchpad.
Despite these characters not originating from the series original media, those
characters eventually got worked into the Batman comics and the new Ducktales
cartoon because writers realized they had a fanbase and could add something to
the show. Heck the Ducktales reboot seems to be drawing inspiration from tons
of old Disney stuff plenty of people now aren’t even old enough to know about,
and from the looks of it the show will be even better because of it.
………I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think that a
comic series that uses exclusively modern Sonic content can be said to be
objectively better than a series that uses a mix of old and new stuff from
multiple Sonic cannons (though tbf Sega has legal embargoes In regards to how
far they can go with some of that regardless). Likewise I don’t think
belittling fans of Sonic whatever media in claiming they don’t matter is
exactly fair, and that this is particularly hypocritical if such fans request
for lesser known game characters that are just as “niche” as Satam characters
to begin with. A character isn’t less
deserving of any sort of inclusion on any level just because of where or when they
originated from, especially if they can be done well. Heck for comparison
it’s basically like saying K.Rool and Issac can’t be added to a new smash bros
game since they’re too old for younger fans to remember, aren’t relevant
anymore or from series that are only have cult statues. Those are “technically”
valid arguments against them, but most hardcore fans aren’t exactly going to
get on board with that given the legacy behind them(Similar arguments with new
Megaman/F-Zero games, non MCU characters in M V C also come to mind).
4. It would be better for IDW to start fresh and
give their own take on what a Sonic comic book would be like
Ok to start I should probably say that this is actually a
fair opinion to have. I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with
wanting to see the Sonic comics tackled from a different angle and Archie had a
pretty long run, so it’s not like having a comic built on a different
foundation would be a bad thing.
That being said I need to point out that this is not an
argument that’s objectively superior to wanting IDW to continue the old continuity,
keep old characters or whatever else people may want to argue for. IDW is not
obligated to cater to the old Archie fans, BUT ALSO is not obligated to cater
to fans who dislike Archie/Satam elements and want them removed either. People
who are giving each side a hard time, really REALLY need to get over
themselves.
That being said I do think the idea of “starting fresh” is
being exaggerated as some sort of objectively good thing IDW HAS to do. When I
think of a series NEEDING a hard reboot or rebranding, I generally think of
that decision being made based on some sort of necessity. For example a work
has a downward spiral in quality, the story being too complex and back lore
heavy, low sales or a property being dormant for YEARS and needing to be heavily
modernized for a new audience.
Talking about post gen specifically (which is what most of
us had been reading for the last few years) I don’t really believe any of those
apply. Outside some complaints about the shattered world arch taking WAY to long,
reception for the comic had been some of the best I had seen in years. Sonic
universe and the megadrive comics in particular had seen A LOT of praise. I
don’t think the lore complexity was an issue given the reboot basically reset
most of the universe back to zero anyway and the continuity was mostly based on
the games at that point. Likewise the series hadn’t exactly been dormant that
long (Seriously people a year hiatus isn’t that long) and the sales were fine.
If the comic was considered good, sold well, was at a place
where it was reasonable to new people to jump on without too much issue and had
been fairly active, why is it objectively good to do away with all of that to
do something fresh? This is even truer since more story elements had been planned
out already and several comics had already been completed, meaning it didn’t
really end on a finished note.
Like I see the arguments people are making for letting IDW
have the chance to be original, but sometimes I think they’re acting like this
is similar to the jump from the amazing Spiderman movies to the Spiderman homecoming
reboot. In reality it’s a lot more like going from Spectacular Spiderman to
Ultimate Spiderman(even with a similar situation of being screwed by lawyers).
Yeah people did eventually warm up to
Ultimate Spiderman, but it still sucked for Spectacular Spiderman to get canceled
for BS reasons cause it was such a good show, and I still wouldn’t argue it was
an objectively good thing for Disney to start from a fresh slate for the state
of being original.
5. It would be better to get rid of the
baggage regarding the Satam cast and the background of that world.
I dunno. I can understand this, but don’t think all the
traits of Satam were bad even if they were in some ways different than modern
sonic. My issue here is that the main sonic games don’t really have that much
lore or world building to start from, likewise they don’t really explain some
background elements. By using some parts of satam post gen Archie was able to
-To give an explanation to Eggman’s rise to power and some
of his tech
-Create a couple more kingdoms and world groups, which could
clash and engage in politics with the game ones
-Establish several “freedom fighter” groups’ worldwide, as
well as regional badguys, allowing for some world building.
Like it’s not much, but I don’t see why getting rid of it
would improve anything. You’re likely need to refill those aspects somehow
anyway if the tone of the comic stays even somewhat similar.
6.
If Sega wanted the FF and Archie cast they
wouldn’t have left Archie. They also probably want to make the comic more in
line with the games.
Art by Shieltar(uh
heads up some of his other art is…interesting, but this pic was to good to pass
up).
This is not the case. While it’s true Ian Flynn had to do
some convincing to keep the freedom fighters and viable Archie characters after
the first reboot, Sega didn’t leave Archie due to some dislike of the comics
content before or after said reboot. Most of the blame really has to do with
the lawsuits Ken Penders and Scot Fulop started, which put pressure on the
relationship between the two companies. Likewise Archie’s mismanagement and
screwed priorities in regards to Riverdale and other properties they’ve been
making, as well as the fact they’ve allegedly want to get away from
action/adventure series.
Also we really don’t know what Sega wants to do with the
book yet. It was mentioned the comics were going to be taken in a different direction,
but it’s not actually clear yet if that was referring to story or publishers.
Given the staff for the book hasn’t even been chosen yet though, I doubt they’ve
gotten as far as most people seem to be assuming. It’s all just speculation
really.
7. The Sonic cast is already large enough to
carry comic
It’s not as much as
you would think
Ok I covered this a bit in my first blog, but this isn’t
entirely true. While technically Sonic has expanded its roster greatly over the
years, the people in it just don’t fill out the roles needed to keep a comic
running long term. For example let’s go over the “canon” villains and
supporting cast, and actually talk a bit about how viable they are.
Villains
Eggman: Defacto main series antagonist. He’s viable by
default for reasons that are fairly obvious.
Metal Sonic: Major villain. He normally works under Eggman,
but on occasion can strike out on his own. Viable.
Mephilis the dark: One time villain from Sonic 06. His
backstory is pretty complex and built around the creature Solaris from Silver’s
bad furture. Current mandates stated he was not allowed to be used in the
comics outside of cameos, most likely due to ret-gone nature of Sonic 06. Not
viable.
Eggman Nega: Future descendent of Eggman from Silver’s
future. He shows up as a villain in the Sonic Rush and Rivals games. Currently
there are comic mandates stating he could not be used in the comics, likely due
to the continuity snarl in regards to his origin and the sonic timeline. Not
viable
Black doom: The main antagonist of the game Shadow the
hedgehog. Rules a species of alien beings called the black arms which were the
origination of the DNA used to make Shadow. Due to the game and the villain
being so tightly linked to Shadow’s character development, Black Doom is also
not allowed to be used due to mandates. Though that being said the dark arm’s
themselves can show up in stories.
Witcart: Antagonist of the game tails Skypatrol. The game
was never released in America, but Sega owns her making her viable. She has
very little characterization outside of what was given to her in Archie though.
Great Kukku; Antagonist of the game Tails Adventure.
Controls an army of waring bird like warriors. Only appeared once, but is
viable.
Void: The negative side of the goddess Lumina from the alt
dimension maginary world. Only appeared once in Sonic Shuffle, but is for all
known proposes viable if you find a wat to write around him fusing back into
Lumina at the end of said game.
Erazor djin: An evil genie that tried to take over the Arabian
nights book world in sonic and the secrete rings. Should be viable, but mostly exists
within the context of an alt dimension.
Merlina: A sorceress that manipulated Sonic to do her
bidding in the game sonic and the black knight. Hails from an alternate
dimension called Camelot found within a magic book. Should be viable.
Deadly 6: The villains of Sonic lost world. Outside of not
really being all that fleshed out, nothing about them would suggest they are
not viable for repeated use in an ongoing comic.
Ok in the entire series we have about 11 major villains that
have enough charisma to carry a story on their own potentially, but
unfortunately upon further inspection you kind of run into some issues. Under
most circumstances Metal sonic works under Eggman, and doesn’t typically
display much of a personality on his own. 3 of these characters were expressly
forbidden from actually appearing in Archie, which would probably carry over to
IDW. Another 4 also reside in completely separate dimensions or time periods,
which makes them difficult to use without some major set up beforehand. Most of
the rest are frankly one time villains who haven’t appeared in years, making
them just as “negligible” as Archies cast anyway.
It’s really only
Eggman and the deadly 6 that are expressly standalone villains that actually
exist in the same world as Sonic and are actually relevant to Sega at this
point in time. Which kind of isn’t a lot
to work with. Creating new villains like Eclipse, Black Death, Captain metal, Phage,
Eggmans dozen, or adapting old Satam/Archie centric characters like Ixis
nuagus, Breezi, and Snively are an inevitability to fill that void.
Heroes
Here’s the thing I don’t think most people understand about
the Sonic cast. A lot of them aren’t really designed to stay around Sonic
consistently as part of a supporting cast. Many of them have roles in their
universe they need to fill out, and Sega has to continually stretch the
suspension of disbelief, downplay character traits or rely on huge threats to
get them together in most games now.
Knuckles: He’s not really a character that supposed to
follow Sonic around constantly while being buddy buddy. He’s a guardian of a
very powerful relic and is typically reluctant to leave it. This was actually
the crux of his dynamic with Sonic to an extent as he originally was jealous of
Sonic’s ability to roam around freely while he had a more solitary life.
Shadow, Rouge and Omega: Works for a government agency known
as GUN. They would only get involved with Sonic if their objectives overlap.
Silver: Is from the future of Sonic’s world. He basically
needs to travel back in time to get involved in a plot. This typically means
he’d only ever be near Sonic when the future world is in immediate jeopardy.
Blaze the cat: Resides in an alternate dimension altogether.
She also guards the sol emeralds and jeweled scepter and would probably only
normally get involved in the plot if either of those two come into danger.
The chaotix (Vector,Charmy and Espio): Run a detective
agency. Will only normally interact with Sonic if he happens to be involved with
a job they’re currently on.
The Babylon rouges: Kind of in a weird spot. They aren’t
exactly friends to Sonic truth be told.
They’re more akin to anti-heroes.
Now this isn’t to say most of these characters don’t have
tons of cool plot potential or that they wouldn’t travel with Sonic on
occasion, but they really aren’t meant to be consistent characters Sonic would
hang out with.
It’s frankly really only Tail’s who’s supposed to be a consistent
travel companion to Sonic in the games. Outside that maybe you can maybe make
an argument for Amy and Cream, given Amy actively seeks out Sonic and Cream
tends to stay with Amy on occasion. This is something a lot of Sonic media seem
to realize In fact, which is probably why those characters stay with Sonic in X
and why all of them were on the freedom fighters team in Archie.
But I digress my point is the freedom fighters serve as a
supporting cast that actively have a reason to be around Sonic in most situations,
without the need to write circles in the plot to get them together. The group also
serves a functional purpose. Because they are a peace keeping group, this gives
Sonic a bigger reason to actively seek out conflicts and get involved in issues
with other character groups or governments rather than often having to wait indeterminate
lengths of time for a conflict to come to him or escalate first.
8. Some misc. thoughts
After seeing some websites comment on the sonic comic and seeing
how some detractors are reacting, I kind of have a suspicion that many people leaving
complaints haven’t actually read the comic in a while. For example people keep
saying they want the comics to more closely follow the games, they want more
focus on the sega characters, they dislike the art, and the story was too
convoluted or whatever. But the thing is that Ian had been actively working to
fix many of those issues ever since he came in on 160 and most of those
problems had been done away with after the reboot anyway. If you haven’t read
this comic in a decade, it’s a lot different from what you’ll remember.
I also can’t help but feel like some of the borderline
disdain for the freedom fighters is a bit ………..hypocritical? It’s ok not to be
a fan of a character but I wouldn’t really demand that they have to or should
be removed from a media altogether because of that. I say this particularly because
the Sonic series is filled with tons of game characters that have huge
hatedomes, including Silver, Amy, Charmy, Big the cat, Cream and even Shadow to
varying extents. Arguing that any of them shouldn’t be in a game again or that
Sega should avoid using them in the new comic or media just seems kind of obnoxious
and belittling to the people who do enjoy them IMO. This is particularly true
if the characters can be included in a way that’s non-intrusive to what you
enjoy or want to see from the Sonic franchise.
Like really this is
the spectrum of thoughts I think most people would probably have
The freedom fighters need to be removed permanently, and
have no place in Sonic media-------I’m ok with the FF, but they should have a
reduced role in the plot--------indifference---------I would prefer if they
stayed, and in a similar role------------if the FF get removed the comic is
automatically bad.
I think all the options but the first and last are at least
somewhat reasonable. People going to the extreme of either end are honestly
either being selfish and nearsighted. If including the FF and Archie cast in
anyway is enough to cause so much debate, than I think arguing that they can’t
be in the comic at all isn’t being fair to the people who like them. It’s also hypocritical
given the way many fans and outsiders hate some game characters. In contrast I
REALIZE I’m probably a bit biased, and I fully acknowledge the comic isn’t
necessarily going to fail if these characters don’t stick around. Even if you
love the FF you should at least be willing to give the new comic a chance.
Anyway overall are the only arguments for removing them I
think actively make sense and are more or less objective are
1. Wanting IDW to have the chance to make their own original
take of Sonic, not bound to any of the ideas of Archie. Mainly because you
think a fresh take would be a good thing for the series that can potentially
create some new original ideas.
2. A desire to distance the new comic from any similarities
with Archie at all due to the legal drama.
3. Potential legal embargos regarding the contracts of the
original Archie comic being based on the Satam/Aosth show getting in the way of
whether they can be used again.
3. No that’s pretty much it.
Everything else is a much more subjective. Some arguments
don’t even make sense imo.
SAYING YOU WANT A VERSE MORE AKIN TO THE GAMES OR NOT
WANTING CHARACTERS IN THE COMICS THAT AREN’T A PART OF THOSE GAMES AND PROBABLY WONT BE ADDED TO THE
GAMES IS A PARADOXAL ARGUMENT. I assure you no matter how the comic starts or
how “close” to the games it is, you are going to get OC characters that will
never be used in cannon at some point. This has happened in every adaption of
Sonic ever, with things like cosmo/the meterex in X, Sonia/Manic in
underground, evil Super Sonic in fleetway, the intern in Boom, and so on. It’s not something you
can escape. If some of the inevitable OC characters can include the FF and
Archie cast, I say you may as well go for it. I also find using the megadrive comic as an example against this kinda unfair given it was only a sort mini series.
Conclusions?
The big question few people are asking. Why can’t you just have
multiple Sonic books with different cannons or focus points?
Wait this is an
option?
Ok so this is an obvious solution to the problem that kind
of dawned on me the other day. People are aware that Archie made multiple Sonic
books right? Likewise they also know that they aren’t always in the same
continuity either right?
Like seriously we’ve had a Sonic X comic, Sonic boom, main
Sonic, Sonic Universe, the mega drive comics. Head writer Ian Flynn also had to
make a separate Megaman comic on the side at some points. Not all of these were
made at the same time to be fair, but at most we’ve had nearly 4-5 ongoing series
at once.
In addition to that take a look at IDWs license properties.
Transformers has 8 series with this company: http://www.idwpublishing.com/trending_titles/transformers/
Disney has 11 series being published with them: http://www.idwpublishing.com/trending_titles/disney/
GI Joe has 11: http://www.idwpublishing.com/trending_titles/gi-joe/
TMNT: 10 series http://www.idwpublishing.com/trending_titles/tmnt/
Like granted I’m DEFINITELY aware not all these books were
published at the same time and some were short runners, but Jesus from what I
can see it’s very common for most of IDWs licensed franchises to have at least
3-4 ongoing books at the same time if they’re reasonably popular, along with
tons of mini-series on the side. Not all of them for a single franchise are in
the same time period or continuity either, so there’s def wiggle room in terms
of the content you can provide.
People do realize what that means right?
You could literally have multiple comics that are made to be
tailored to multiple tastes. You could get a comic that’s more baseline with the
video game characters and has Sonic mostly doing things on his own. You could
have a comic that has Sonic working with the freedom fighters as part of a team
and with more original stories. You could also still keep something akin to sonic
universe for side characters, while also getting occasional mini-series like
mega drive. Heck you could continue the
old continuity and create a new one AT THE SAME TIME!
No one said Sega was going to dial back the AMOUNT Sonic
comic content we would get, so there’s no reason to act like all the hopes and
dreams of the universe are going to be pinned on a single comic. This is especially
true since it seems like IDW hasn’t even put together a staff yet. Everything
is clearly in the early planning stages.
--------------------------------------------------
Anyway there’s my say on the whole Freedom fighter and
archie cast thing. Overall whether they stick to a similar role as the last
comic, or get retooled or get less screen time, I wholeheartedly believe at the
very least they have the right to continue existing in some form and the
arguments levied against that are pretty exaggerated.
Additionally I’m actually going to expand on the idea of
having multiple IDW Sonic books in one final part of the Ultraguy’s hopes and
despairs for IDW Sonic series. Particularly talking about what kind of books I
think IDA could make to appeal to multiple people, as well as ideas from
various Sonic canons I would like to see introduced in some way.
