Sonic The Hedgehog

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
One of the things the Sonic 2 movie did is reignite my interest in the Sonic games. Looking at various retrospectives, I see it's been rough times for a while with some characters getting it particularly bad. One thing I've known for a while is that Sonic has a Twitter presence with occasional Q&A with fans. But in looking at the Twitter page, I stumbled on this:


Compared to the Twitter takeovers, this feels more designed to be in universe (as opposed to giving shout outs to YouTube personalities and memes). The actual questions themselves (their world, cars, Chaos Emeralds, and "the pink hedgehog") do a bit of canon massaging and worldbuilding. Particularly the first and fourth.

The first brings up their world and it opts for stating that humans exist but simply in different parts of the world. Islands vs. big cities makes sense. With the fourth question, 'sister or girlfriend' is likely a mention of Sonic Underground despite this mostly being about Amy Rose. I'm glad that they included footage from Sonic Advance since Sonic CD -> Adventure -> Advance was an overt progression in her ability from bystander to part of the team.

Also, as someone who's favorite character is Tails, it's nice for him to be the host.
 

CoffeeHorse

*sip*
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Top Gun has eclipsed Sonic 2's whole box office run. Apparently the world really wanted this movie.

Good for Paramount. I'm going to be so annoyed when ROTB puts them back in a hole.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen

While most of it is technically advertisements, there's two things that stood out to me. One is that they're utilizing DLC to pay homage to otherwise neglected games in the franchise. Two, winds up being the bigger issue in that there's Frontiers footage that actually makes it look like a game that might be interesting as opposed to a tech demo.
 

Confuzor

Koopaling Aficionado
Citizen
The way Sega has chosen to show off Frontiers is baffling.

That aside, I'm definitely gonna have to buy that Jakks Eggmobile! That is so cool looking!
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Side comic thing but I kinda stopped checking in on the Sonic IDW series after Belle the robot thing was introduced (Ian Flynn wasn't writing?) so I only just saw Surge and Kit.

I'm assuming Surge is Ian's substitute for Scourge the Hedgehog? Why make her female then? How are the readers taking to her and Kit?

Also, the info says Surge and Kit were initially pitched by Ian Flynn as a trio of glitches taken from the games. Who was the third glitched character suppose to be?
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen

Another TailsTube! According to the separate livestream, more are planned but it's not a regular schedule. Especially since the studio has other animation in the pipeline.
 

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Broke the Matrix
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Side comic thing but I kinda stopped checking in on the Sonic IDW series after Belle the robot thing was introduced (Ian Flynn wasn't writing?) so I only just saw Surge and Kit.

I'm assuming Surge is Ian's substitute for Scourge the Hedgehog? Why make her female then? How are the readers taking to her and Kit?

Also, the info says Surge and Kit were initially pitched by Ian Flynn as a trio of glitches taken from the games. Who was the third glitched character suppose to be?
Starline, I think?
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Isn't Starline just Dr. Finitevous spelling proxy that Flynn carried over? I thought the third glitch character was someone new.

There was also that... Something the Tasmanian Devil that Flynn created before all the other echidnas were wiped out by the Pender lawsuit. The one who had screaming abilities. I recall he was based on a glitch too.
 

Confuzor

Koopaling Aficionado
Citizen
Yeah Starline is based off of an old Knuckles Glitch that made the sprite a weird white color. IIRC there was also a debug menu ...I wanna say in Chaotix, where a selectable name or stage was glitched to just show "*****" or "Line of stars" giving Starline his name (and logo).
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Yeah Starline is based off of an old Knuckles Glitch that made the sprite a weird white color. IIRC there was also a debug menu ...I wanna say in Chaotix, where a selectable name or stage was glitched to just show "*****" or "Line of stars" giving Starline his name (and logo).
Seriously?! I really thought Starline was just Finitevus. And the Starline name... was from some Starline highway stage or something, I dunno.

Either way, Finitevus / Starline are apparent faves of Flynn, for sure.
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Starline's probably a little bit of both a glitch refernce and a albino monotreme "legacy". And ALL these guys (Doctor Zachary from Fleetway, Doctor Finitevus from Archie, Imperator Ix from Dark Brotherhood, and Doctor Starline from IDW) might all stem from the same source. People probably knew about this glitch in Chaotix back in the day and maybe the writers decided to write him in. (Chaotix came out in June of 1995 in the UK, and the issue that debuted Doctor Zachary came out in November of 1995...so, it's a tight window, but possible). More on that glitch here.

As for Surge and Kit, they're less "clones" and more "modified" animal-people who Starline brainwashed into working for him. They were their own people, once, with different names and personalities. But, now they can't remember their own past. They're only sorta filling in for Scourge, they mostly have their own thing going on, but you CAN see a influence there. I...think the fanbase likes them fine enough. I haven't heard many complaints.


The Imposter Syndrome mini-series is dealing with their side of the adventure. It's good, and I'd suggest reading it yourself, but if you need to get caught up quick, there's another video from the same guy as above below.

And the Tasmanian Devil was called Thrash, and yes, he's based on a glitch in Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic games are glitchy. Always have been. *Looks over at Frontiers with worry*

And here's Ian Flynn himself explaining the Glitch Trio's inspiration:
(35:05)

Ian actually answers a LOT of fan-questions on his podcast. Might want to check out his Q&A masterlist on Bumbleking.
 
Last edited:

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
I'm gonna check those vids later. But from the Bumblekast Flynn thing, Starline is this Wechinaspelling? Not Finitevus? And Kit is either a blue Knuckles or a blue Tails? But if that's split, then blue Knuckles is Thrash and blue Tails is Kit.

Cool idea either way, making glitches sorta canon characters.

(Ian would have been more awesome in the MegaMan Archie comic too, had it continued. Darn you, Penders!)
 

Shadewing

Well-known member
Citizen
Dr. Starline is likely half and half, Like yeah he is based off of Wechnia, but Fentivus likely was as well, and they have loosely similar personalities and abilites. So its not hard to say he's probably based on both to some degree; like how Surge is more or less based on Scourge, and both were based on the Asura(?) the green sonic glitch.

Also if they are based on them to any degree, I doubt Flynn will outright admit it to avoid the headache that is Ken Penders. So its easier to say "Yeah, I based them entirely on the glitches."
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Wechnia (for White Echidna) is just another fan name for ****** (or a line of stars). And...well, Ian probably can't SAY that Finitevus is a inspiration, because copyright laws, but he totally IS. (Also, Snively's also part of Starline's inspirations, even though that doesn't get pointed out as often. Even the hair is fainly similar.) Note that he's tying all these characters to SOMETHING from the games, even if it is a glitch. It seems to be easier to get new characters approved by Sega if they have some connection to the games, somehow. Comic or cartoon characters seem to be tougher to get approval for, for whatever reason.

And, well, Penders didn't actually have anything to do with Mega Man getting cancelled. That was all Archie. I don't think anyone's ever explained what's happened, exactly, but it was probably that Archie couldn't afford or didn't want to pay for the licensing fee to Capcom. And Boom did make a Mega Man comic that acted as a ending to the latest cartoon, too. So, clearly, Capcom is willing to let people work on the franchise.

www.reddit.com/r/Megaman/comments/4e3ipu/whatever_happened_to_the_mega_man_comic_book/

Unless the court fees against Penders drained Archie's funds which caused them to not have enough money to re-up the license...Yeah, okay, maybe you can blame Penders, why not?

EDIT:
Apparently, even Ian doesn't know why the Mega Man comic was "hiatus"-ed into cancellation. Circa 2019.
(22:35)
 
Last edited:

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
(love that the name Starline came from a line of asterixes! Also, didn't know the Snively homage)

I figured MegaMan was cancelled because Archie didn't want another 'Ken Penders lawsuit cuz he owns the characters' thing.

Since Flynn had to create so many supporting characters for MegaMan, maybe they decided not to risk it? Quite a shame cuz he was forming an all female team from the looks of it. Quake Woman, Vesper Woman... Who else could have been made?

(Dunno who Quake Woman was based on but Vesper Woman was suppose to be Honey Woman, a female bee Robot Master before they settled on Hornet Man in MegaMan 10).
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Honestly, I think Ian probably would have agreed to sign over any rights he had to the characters to keep the book going, no questions asked. And, likely, the contracts they used for Ian were probably more complete than the ones for Penders. Different times, and all that. Plus, Penders was a odd case. They actual had a photocopy of a re-signed version of his contract, but that apparently wasn't admissible in court. Also, Penders didn't really *win* his characters back, he just settled with Archie out of court.

thankskenpenders.tumblr.com/facts

In court it was explained that some of Archie’s contracts were destroyed in 1996 due to incompetence on the part of the Archie warehouse staff. (Considering the incompetence of the Archie legal staff during the lawsuit, this tracks.) This lead Archie to hastily get several of their creators to sign replacement contracts, which is when Penders signed the oddly incomplete contract that Archie later presented a photocopy of in court. In December 2008, Penders called Archie and asked for copies of his old contracts from the start of his run, at which point Archie told him they didn’t have a contract dating back that far. The next month Penders began filing his copyrights and the legal battle began.

While Penders currently claims that the contract from the start of his run never existed, in a 1999 fan interview he claimed that characters like Julie-Su and Geoffrey were Sega’s property, and that he knew this going in. (He would later write this off as him being “misinformed.”)

Now, it's possible that Capcom didn't want to work with Archie, anymore, since they bungled all of this SO badly. But, I still feel like money is the more likely issue.



As for Quake Woman, I don't think she was based on anyone. Just totally made up by Ian. Although, yeah, I'd assume that as the book went along we would have seen more Dr. Lalinde created robots. Probably would have teamed up with Roll for a arc, down the line.

Personally, I was kind of looking forward to seeing what Ian had in store for the Star Droids. He was pretty clearly influenced by the Megamix and Gigamix manga, making them the big threat. Still, it seemed like he was building towards something kind of interesting, with Ra Moon and the Star Marshals all seemingly connected to whatever he had planned. Also, wherever he was going with Quint and future Wily. Plus, it would have been REALLY cool to see him bridge the X and Zero timelines with the Elf War, which he kind of hinted at in the last issue. *SIGH*...He took WAY too long getting to the good stuff. 55 issues is a respectable run, really, but it wasn't terribly satisfying in the end.
 
Last edited:


Top Bottom