I guess for legality reasons they can’t use some of the characters from the Archie run so they’re copying them.

 

Well no. The thing is except Penders and other former contributors who left Archie for better jobs Sega of America has the copyright any and all of Archie. Freedom Fighters? Check. Egg bosses? Check. Swatbots? Check. Scratch and Grounder? Check-a-roo. Put simply if it appeared in Sonic media before and is still copyrighted by Sega and not a third party then those characters are available for use. No strings, no bargains, no mandates. They can just show up in the comic and not one fuck would be given by Sega. Well okay, one fuck might be given since these comics are meant to be the "official sequel" to Forces and introducing western original ideas are going to trigger the Japanese division.

But I find it hilarious that theyre resorting to copying old comic characters to make this comic interesting. Me thinks they might just realize Archie's expanded universe take on Sonic had its fans for a reason.

 

I thought all the Echidna characters were no go because of the legal issues with that arsehat Penders??? I mean, it's why they effectively erased the entire Echidna race from the main comics before the genesis wave upset.

 

Most of the Echidnas were Penders yes but not all of them. And technically Archie could have continued using them if they paid a royalty fee from the man in question. The reboot didnt even need to happen but Sega didnt like Archie's portrayal of their franchise, Archie wanted to ax the Sonic brand but it kept making money, and a bunch of other issues. Penders isn't innocent in all this but he's arguably the one that did the least damage compared to other parties involved :/

 

Why pay royalties to use characters that SHOULD have been free to use anyway. Penders was an ass, claiming ownership of characters based on Sonic the Hedgehog OCs when Sega owns the overall rights of anything and everything Sonicverse is a piece of shit move and does not win any favors from me no matter how Sega and Archie finally fell out. I can't claim ownership for all the OC characters I've created in my fanfictions for Transformers or the like and sue the parent company IE Hasbro if they make a character whose personality and alt mode look exactly like my OC. Why should a professional artist be allowed to pull a stunt like that.

I don't pretend to follow all of what went down, nor do I know why Sonic and Archie had such a huge falling out, but quite frankly I could care less. Saying the creative team at IDW should just use characters from Archie is being unrealistic, especially since nobody is going to want to pay Penders for the use of said characters, not in a new continuity trying to distance itself from the Archie era of the comic. Reintroducing a ton of Archie only characters might confuse folks who read the book or add baggage based on memories of the original continuity.

 

Well first of all technically Penders did own his characters before the lawsuit. They were co-owned by Sega much like any other introduced into the franchise. Problem was though Archie was suppose to give a royalty fee for both parties which they werent, instead only giving one to Sega and not Penders. This happened when they were reprinting stories with his characters and wasnt receiving pay. When he confronted the companythey threatened to take copyright away from him so to continue their skimming his pay. As someone who's been through a similar situation I can tell you that going to the court was the right thing to do even if it made him unpopular. If a company tries to screw you over you need to hold them accountable. Thing is though this wasn't even the first time Archie tried to cheat out on their contributes as Scott Fulop (creator of Mammoth Mogul) faced the same issue Penders did with the company.

Now as to why Archie cheated their staff working on the Sonic comics its very simple. Despite having the liscense Archie wanted to promote more in-house series like Riverdale. Attitudes towards the Sonic division had changed since it first started and were the comic proven to be a financial failure they'd gladly drop it to promote their own material. Sadly this very thing happened when the Reboot took hold. Sales began to decline to the point that only 8,000 issues were being sold. IDW, which is only 11 issues in at this point, is at 13,000 issues being sold on average. Compare both those to pre-reboot when numbers were much higher in the estimated 25000-50000 if not more.

As for the introducing Archie characters into the comic I doubt that will ever happen. We'll get knock-offs and impersonators (We already have 3 at least) to fill the gap. I'm all for introducing new characters but its another thing to just steal an idea from another series and try to repackage it. This is especial when theres little to know barriers stopping the original from being added. For example sake let's take Sally Acorn. All that Ian (were he so included but he isnt) would need to do is have Sonic run to a Resistance base hidden in the forest. There he meets the locals who dub themselves the Freedom Fighters with Sally as their leader. There you go. Or how about the Egg Bosses. Simple. Just introduce them as Mobians who fell under Eggman's command by choice or force. Again, done. Would people get confused? Possibly but as long as you do enough to differ the two depictions its not that hard. Transformers has done this time and again so Sonic shouldnt be that much harder.

 

I could have sworn Penders only owned his characters because Archie fucked up when they failed to cement his rights as a creator concerning characters in the Sonic comics in the contract for freelance artists/writers. While Penders may have technically co-owned them because of some legal red tape not tieing his hands, I don't believe ANYBODY in Sega would have approved giving ownership of ANY characters to anybody other than the parent company. Also, Penders tried to go one higher and actually had the gall to sue Sega for their use of a race of Echidna in Chronicles called the Dark Brotherhood, which he claimed infringed on his patented owned Echidna race from the comics. This in turn lead to soured relations with Archie and Sega because of this situation as they had created their Echidna race characters in that Sonic RPG because reasons that were not linked to the comic at all and it's led to them not even acknowledging those game made characters anymore because of Penders ego-sized delusions which led to all of that legal kerfuffle in the first place.

And from what I recall earlier in this thread didn't you say Ian was purposefully not using the Freedom Fighters because he hated Sally and the SatAM cast which had been foisted on him for the longest time? Or something along those lines.

 

You are correct in that Penders did try to sue Bioware and Sega for infringement which he had no grounds on. That was ridiculous and a boneheaded decision to say the least. As for Penders characters going to him, again you are correct. Had Penders and Archie not gotten into a pissing match no doubt his characters, and those who faced similar issues with the publisher, would have to hand them over to Sega once they were done. The royalty payments Archie wasnt providing was for his work, so to rephrase what I said earlier in a simpler context: Archie was printing Penders work without paying him while he was still with the publisher. As for the lawsuit itself when Archie failed to produce a contract that Penders would had to have signed to hand over his characters to Archie and subsequently Sega the case was dropped. If memory serves right I think said contract was lost in an office fire but I'm not 100%.

So to abridge the Penders vs Archie lawsuits here's the abridged timeline:
1) Archie reprints comics with Penders characters without providing payment to the creator. Upon confrontation Archie threatens to sue Penders to avoid paying future royalties.
2) Failure to produce a binding contract between Penders and Archie Publishing results in case being dropped. Following that Penders performs a lawsuit for malpractice against Archie. Penders wins this case.
3) Archie, fearing or having lost the case against Penders, brings Sega of America to interfere with the case to their favor. This fails and Penders wins copyright of his characters.

As for my comments focused on Ian Flynn being against use of the Freedom Fighters I stand by those points. I will abridge for brevity sake.
1) Before being hired by Archie Ian worked on his own comic titled Sonic: Other M. In said comic Sally acorn was shot through the head which occurred in canon after Ian Flynn had been hired.
2) Before the Super Genesis wave the Freedom Fighters had been disbanded, some members left in unfortunate circumstances. Sally had been roboticized, Nicole branded an enemy of the state of Acorn Republic, Bunnie preparing to be legionized to regain her cybernetics, and Antoine dying (which was retconned so he could survive, albeit in a coma).
3) After the Sonic Unleashed arc in the Reboot continuity Ian has stated that the Freedom Fighters would become disbanded again. He stated that the reboot only "accelerated" his plans for the comic.
4) On several occasions he has described the Freedom Fighters as "defunct" and no longer desired.

To summarize the behavior as a whole Ian is a fan brought up by Sonic through the games. There is no shame in that. Despite being hired and being acclaimed as the "savior of the comic" sales for the comic had been on the decline since his inclusion. His work began on #160 and you can see with each progressing issue more game-original elements started to rise in prominence while original ideas, comic-exclusive from the comics began to disappear. The Freedom Fighters are among the latter and no doubt would have been removed sooner or later.

 

I think that was partially because Ian wrote the characters so polarizingly in certain respects. Things happened once he took over from Penders that fans of the comics did not want because the Archie comics had long since passed the point where the games were more of the focus. (With Badnicks and the SSSSSS having long since been disbanded in favor of the villains like the Dark Legion, Mammoth Mogul and Nack the Weasel.) I personally didn't mind the changes and was still buying the comic, the new characters like the Egg Bosses and such were nice, but to have them with IDW when the Freedom Fighters and the Archie continuity isn't being continued would be very, very difficult to swallow or accept. The oldest issue I owned before I started getting reprints and back-issues was #4 and so Sonic started off a bit goofier and with more of a comic side to things. The SatAM took strong precedent by the time we got to the double digits and it was the norm for the longest time. Ian unfortunately made changes rapidly wanting to set up for his brand of story telling and getting rid of everything that had come before, which more than likely soured a lot of fans hence the decline in sales.

Then again the comic had been going on for quite some time and the hardcore fans were probably the only ones still following the continuity. Being able to start fresh with IDW would have made Flynn very happy I'd imagine so he could get rid of the massive continuity and the huge baggage that the Archie comics had become. I miss the Archie continuity, but I don't want to see them rely on bringing it back just because... although if they could somehow continue reprinting so I could get the entire run I'm still missing a bit of issues from around the 80's and 90's and getting back issues is even harder these days.

For now I guess I'll stick with IDW and hope the story doesn't decline too much because of fan backlash or the like.

 

I can respect that. Though I disagree with the "out with the old, in with the new" regarding characters that became favorites if not just as popular as the game-only ones.

I will say this as a warning, I wouldnt get my hopes up about IDW Sonic continuing for longer than say 5 years at best. A LOT of controversy has arisen from the publisher and its staff so don't get too attached less you hurt yourself

 

If the author can't write them properly and would prefer to follow a Marvel or DC Edgelord approach to the storytelling ALA killing Sally, martyring/demonizing Nicole, Antoine or Bunnie I say let them stay out of this one for now.

I have no idea about all the controversy with IDW, but if they can keep going for 5 more years I could care less as long as they get to conclude the storyline with a definitive ending, unlike how Archie handled it. I'll be 41 in 5 more years anyway and my comic collecting may not continue too long past that point depending on health or other situational developments that can occur in those kind of ways. As long as I can somehow get a complete run of the Archie series for my collection before I go I'll be happy. I knew I should have ordered those Sonic X package deals when I had the chance, finding back issues of that run is nearly impossible these days. At least I have all of Boom and am only missing one issue from the Knuckles run.

I'll keep checking back issue bins and do my utmost I suppose. Being able to pass on such a thing/legacy to someone would be very much appreciated.

 

I read the 1st 2 issues and love it! I love the artwork and the characters are fun!

 

Guess who’s back:

Spoiler

As to how he go his memories back? The mind memory machine that he was exposed to only made him work with his old machines, but not his old personality. However, after he touches Metal Sonic, who left Sonic and Tails after they both brought him back to life, Eggman made a full return. Also, the Resistance group that Knuckles lead has disbanded now.

 

Why, in the name of Ovi Kintobor, would Sonic and Tails restore Metal? They should have either left him to rust or tear him apart so he'd be of little use to Eggman, but no. Just rebuild him, give him a charge, wax his casing why don't ya? Then don't come crying when he comes back to attack you later on. Seriously, why didn't ANYONE object to this decision by Sonic? More over why would he even think this was a good idea? When has Metal, in the games, ever been shown to be a "redeemable" character? He obeys Eggman's orders without question and is determined to destroy Sonic. Those are his prime directives that will never change.

​

 

So Eggman's new plan involves turning living things into robots and Sonic will probably be his main target. Now where have I seen that before?

 

I honestly wasn't expecting them to bring back roboticization. Worse, it's actually more terrifying than it's ever been. Sure, the original was stripping away a person's free will and turning them into a machine, but now it's a zombie virus that only needs to spread through contact with organic matter.

 

I'll grant them that, robotization being a plague, is a unique concept but I'm not holding my breath of this being a lasting threat or that they'll do anything interesting with it in the long run. Sonic and who ever else will be cured and Eggman will never use it again since the infection now has cure. Looking at what the infection does it basically mutates their skin and eyes which reminds me of the Heroes Metal skins. Would not be surprised if this ended up being the case in the comics.

Thinking about it now... Ian seems really obsessive with Heroes and its elements. :/

 

Considering what just got posted in the news thread I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic that we'll still have a Sonic Comic in the next year or so. IDW seems to be in a very precarious position... then again I didn't even know they had a television division, and has that even lent itself to any new material or shows?

 

None that I’ve heard of.

I’m liking the current direction of the comic, so I hope it has a long and successful run.

 

Apparently the Zombots are based the Hidden "Metal" skins from Sonic Heroes Multiplayer.

Which I say is a great work around if IDW is mostly restricted to game elements. Also remember Archie Sonic didn't start expanding it's universe till the comic was in it's mid 30's when decided to tone down it's comedic side of the book.