The Complete First Arc of IDW Sonic | SSR Compilation

welcome to sonic's speed reading where we talk about well sonic the hedgehog and printed media if you have to come up with a fun little catchphrase there but we'll work on it now i don't need to tell anybody that sonic is a video game icon regardless of how you feel about any particular title the dude's been around here for 30 years but he's also prominent in other forms of media obviously with that movie that came out not too long ago and some short-lived but very beloved cartoons but the second most prominent form of sonic the hedgehog outside of video games would have to be sonic in the humble comic book but if you've never read a sonic comic book before it can be a little daunting if you're trying to jump in i mean there's nearly 30 years of this stuff to jump into what counts as continuity what counts as his own storyline what's the good stuff what's the bad stuff how much of this do i really need to read well that's kind of the whole point of this show we're gonna break all this down for you make sense of these characters these relationships why these are so beloved why a lot of this is also not so beloved some of the crazy drama behind the scenes and all kinds of stuff but we're not going to get into any of that today today we're going to tackle the question where should you start with sonic comic books well the answer is very very simple you start with issue one of idw's sonic comic series this is the most recent incarnation of sonic comics so there's a couple obvious reasons why you should start here as opposed to digging up some stuff in the past for the most real world of reasons right now this is the only book that is being published therefore it's the only sonic comic book out there with a staff that needs to get paid to make a living you start with archie you start with fleetway that money ain't going anywhere to nobody and i don't think you can even really buy those things outside of like second-hand stuff or what you can find online and uh yeah secondly well it's just much more straightforward than anything else you're gonna be finding with fleetway or archie and we will get into that in their own episodes the idw book takes place in the sonic gaming universe and those are already pretty easy enough to follow especially these days for better or worse and third and probably the most important reason why you should start with this one is that it's really good you can see there's a lot of love and care for this franchise in each and every page and every single word bubble in every panel and i can tell you growing up with the archie book that wasn't always the case even youtubers that focus solely on comic books usually don't even touch the sonic stuff but when they do they usually talk about idw sonic and they're usually talking about how good this is how surprised that it is as good as it is and for folks who have been reading sonic comics for the longest time it's no surprise archie sonic was messy for many many years but eventually ian flynn would take over the book and despite all the hoops he had to jump through be it from lawsuits or from sega mandates he still managed to tell really compelling stories so when sega and archie finally said screw it and parted ways idw took up the license and immediately hired basically all the creative staff that was working on the archie book and brought him over to idw so this book works as a fresh start for brand new readers it works as a continuation for sonic forces if you wanted more story from there and you can see a lot of subtle hints to other story arcs that ian was building to in the archie book play out here maybe not exactly the same but there's a lot of little things in here that makes it feel like that long-running book that so many people fell in love with only skipped a few months and then got back to business we're missing a lot of stuff be it from mobius or the extended cast and all these relationships but again we're not talking about that today i'm coming at this as a fan of sonic the hedgehog as a whole and as a fan of comic books and for someone who is curious i would hand them issue 1 of idw sonic the first page of the book shows sonic facing off against a bunch of different final bosses or well final eggman bosses from some of the more recent games quickly explaining what a lot of people probably already know sonic and eggman fight a whole bunch sonic usually whips his butt most recently eggman took over the world in sonic forces he's disappeared and now it's up to sonic and his friends to clean up the mess so the book never wastes your time trying to explain why sonic is fast or why tails has well two tails it just assumes you already know this stuff you already know that eggman's a bad dude you get it so we jump right into the action sonic runs into a town saves a bunch of people from a bunch of different eggman robots throwing some sass in here and they're taking time in between all these speedy takedowns to help folks out and making sure they're doing okay and in the second half of the book tails shows up quickly establishing that these two are basically brothers they're best friends and they work well together taking a few more pages to show them kicking some more robot but before leaving the first issue with sonic saying well i'm gonna go check out more town see what's going on and tails you stay here and help clean up or whatever the case is and they end the book with a new mystery tails explains that yes eggman's been taken out and yeah a lot of his robots have still been roaming about but they've seemed directionless aimless if there's any attacks it's usually been by accident but recently they seem coordinated they seem organized so we got a lot of fun quips a lot of action a lot of camaraderie and now we're ending this first issue with a little bit of a mystery is eggman back and if he is why is he making a grand show of it like he usually does what's going on that's a pretty solid hook for a very first issue in a new universe that really strips away a lot of what the archie sonic has built up and it also plays off well from a game that well had a lot of potential but really didn't pay off in each issue going from here they build up on the mystery and also show sonic meetup with one of his friends and how he relates to them what's their relationship like i figured a simple story wouldn't really grab me when i first picked this book up but i became invested very quickly and the few new characters he brings into this world just feel natural they're all awesome so if you're familiar with my channel you might be aware that i'm not the biggest fan of sonic forces despite what it was supposed to be or the bits and pieces i did enjoy from that game overall i felt it was underwhelming and a lot of folks like me feel like there was a lot of missed potential here so when i heard that the idw book was going to take place right after sonic forces i wasn't too excited but i should have trusted ian flynn and the crew from archie since they were brought back on board to do this book because ian does what he's done from the beginning from the archie stuff which is basically cleaning up shop i know it's gonna rile up some archie fans but it is what it is not everything from those books were perfect and not everything from sonic forces was perfect either and to tell the story he needed to tell he needed to get back to basics with some of these characters as well as have him fill in some roles that might have made sense for them in sonic forces or make up for the lack of characters that the archie series had built up so well thankfully his experience with the comics and these characters in particular and well just the franchise overall plays out on the pages without too much fuss see the idw book has two challenges ahead of it it needs to take place after a sonic game that a lot of people felt betrayed a lot of character choices and again just didn't do what it should have set out to do and also needs to introduce new readers to these characters you're gonna get a lot of sonic fans that have played the games or read the previous books jumping into this one but you gotta write this for them as well as brand new readers that's just how this goes and in terms of sonic forces while i wasn't a fan of the game in the hands of the right creatives there was boundless storytelling opportunity here the two major arcs in the book right now address a couple of different ways that robotnik taking over the world could have worked and throughout the entire thing it covers up some specific plot holes from the game and these are done to different levels of success some are a little more on the nose than i would have liked and others balloon out into their own story arcs that turns out to be pretty awesome but to break down the thematic elements that ian flynn reuses and takes advantage of that was set up in sonic forces we'd have to break down the story arcs themselves and we're not going to do that today like i said we're only going to focus on sonic and the other three main characters from the mainline sonic series of games for sonic himself there's a bit more personality that shines in this book than it did through sonic forces you can still see some of the sega mandates coming out to play here sonic is no longer allowed to cry or be in relationships or really a lot of these stand out more humanizing elements that earlier days of sonic allowed him to be and that is a massive restriction when you're trying to tell a narrative he is a corporate mascot and that corporation is so very scared of showing any sign of weakness with this guy even when you know they should probably focus more on gameplay and narrative but you know what's here there still with the wiggle room he's allowed ian does make the best use of the character he's sassy he's free-spirited very confident and kind-hearted to a fault and i do mean to a fault there were moments in this book i felt like sonic was being a little bit too nice especially to you know robots but as it turns out that would play into a bigger conflict and later issues these are things that do get addressed and other characters call out about sonic sega wants him to be the perfect little blue boy but that doesn't mean the other characters around him can't criticize him for it it's actually pretty compelling and the book has to become a classic superhero narrative how to remain optimistic how to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming bleak odds like in any superhero book it's always going to go the way of the hero like even death they're gonna come back and be just fine but you have to at least give the illusion that things aren't gonna go their way and how they triumph how they overcome is what makes them so inspiring and that's what they do with sonic so in terms of improvement from sonic forces the character himself doesn't change a whole lot he's just a little bit wittier a little bit sassier but is also allowed to feel a bit of concern and stress every now and then which he certainly didn't do in sonic forces and far more interesting is how ian reestablishes the core character of the other characters in the first issue sonic meets up with tails and like i said in that first episode discussing where you should start with sonic comics he quickly establishes how well these two characters work together there's no convoluted backstory you know who tales is you know who sonic is and that should be that but tails did go off the deep end in sonic forces once he believed sonic was dead he went off on his own and well just been kind of portrayed as a coward i should also note that tales has been kind of a wimp since sonic unleashed so this is not too out of character for the most modern interpretation of tales but that's the most offense i'm gonna give this they just redesigned his personality to help fit the narrative they were trying to tell and it wasn't a very good narrative and that's certainly not a character you want to follow along in a comic book so flynn quickly reestablishes the tales we know and love idolizes sonic treats him like a best friend and big brother and a genius perfectly capable and competent all on his own because he learned all of these lessons from sonic and he's carried that forward into his own life regardless they still have to address how he was acting in sonic forces and instead of just shying away from it and never bringing it up ian deals with it head on the first issue we see tails trail off from a thought once he realizes that sonic is going to go off on his own and the potential of him actually dying could be a thing that's not something he wants to relive but he quickly realizes that you know he's got to do what he's got to do tails has to think tactically here he's going to be far more reliable to these folks that need help in this town and sonic's going to be much more effective if he takes advantage of that speed and gets from place to place helping people out there are times when their team up is far more effective but right now we see tails understanding that he needs to grow up he needs to step up and he needs to be his own hero and at the same time he's also addressing that yeah you know i didn't handle that death stuff too well at all but you know i was a little bit out of it i goofed up i'm gonna do better and they address all that within a couple of lines going forward again you're gonna see tails in some very dark and desperate situations and unlike sonic you can see that sega has eased up a little bit on what tails is allowed to do and through him and other characters outside of sonic you do see him lose hope you do see him cry but you still see him overcome and be the hero we know he is the central focus of the book is not on tails but at the same time they take a great deal of effort to re-establish the hero we know and love and if nothing else i feel like that's commendable now the next character though well that has some fans a little bit heated up certainly not the most riled up compared to another character but that's gonna need its own episode i'm talking about of course amy rose in the second issue of the book sonic has sped from where tails is hanging out to new spot where a super crab robot is about to mess up a town and he meets up with amy in her first appearance they quickly established that yes she is still all googly-eyed for sonic the hedgehog and is terrifyingly effective with a hammer but on top of this she desperately tries to get sonic to rejoin the resistance and sonic's not having it at all from there the town they're in is attacked by more robots sonic goes off and does his thing but amy on top of fighting robots also helps direct and command the civilians to bring up the most effective defenses and how to protect themselves they're basically setting her up to be the new commander of the resistance from sonic forces and this is where a lot of folks have some problems with this portrayal of amy and if you've only ever played sonic games you might not see what the big deal is but for fans i grew up with the cartoons and the long running comic this is the very clear and obvious role of sally acorn this is again another character that deserves her own episode there is a lot to talk about and she is so extremely important to the overall franchise of sonic despite what sega nowadays wants you to think and a lot of fans are torn between loving sally or loving amy because we're in arguments on which one sonic should uh and while that is an interesting discussion and i certainly have my own stance on it it's not entirely fair to either character but relationship stuff aside a lot of sally fans are still upset because well sally was made for this why on earth is amy taking up this role amy's her own character she doesn't need to be sally on top of it well the unfortunate truth about this whole matter is sally doesn't exist in this world the games have never featured the freedom fighters outside of sonic spinball in a brief cameo and as the years have progressed and the franchise has become more cohesive the mistreatment of selling the other freedom fighters is something we need to address in i certainly miss those characters as well but as it is we don't have them anymore and for me in terms of sonic forces that game and the developers and the writers just kind of filled roles for a lot of the sonic cast that was already there without really understanding their personality their power set or building on a lot of character development that the game really needed and in terms of the role of commander that was left to knuckles who i will get to in a minute but i personally felt that while he would be capable to command a small ragtag group of folks against eggman and his army he's not the best choice for that particular position it does make more sense for amy to be on the more delegation end of things knuckles is a fighter a little thick-headed at times but a fighter and the best use for him would be out in the front lines fighting these robots not hidden in a bunker and without sally well there are still some differences between how sally would have commanded the resistance and how amy's commanding the resistance and i think they navigate these troubled waters fairly well not perfectly but well the difference between amy and sally is amy kind of grew into this position and sally's just always been a natural leader amy started off with her entire identity surrounded by crushing on sonic and it's only been very recent in the last few years where she's been a little more subtle about it but at the same time ian addresses that yeah all that other stuff with her obsessing over sonic did happen and hints of it still leak out of her i probably could have phrased a little bit better sally on the other hand especially in the earlier days regardless of how she feels about sonic that does not come before duty and she's not going to put up with any of his nonsense she knows how to best utilize sonic and point them in the right direction to get the job done the idw amy doesn't feel like a clone of sally to me she feels like someone who mentored under sally that's how i've always interpreted it while sally does not exist in this story ian does have quite the history with those other characters there's a lot of genuine love and care put into the freedom fighters while he was on the archie book and to me i always saw this as a subtle homage to sally as opposed to just taking the other girl and having her fill the role that the missing girl once occupied if you don't feel that way i completely understand but again we are dealing with the world that is not allowed to have sally but a scenario and theme that could very much use sally and while both of these characters are directing their troops amy is growing into it as opposed to sally who just knows what she's doing amy's still in her sundress with matching boots for crying out loud sally started off in combat boots then added a vest a couple years into her run now i know this particular video has turned into a sally versus amy conversation but i feel like it's important to emphasize this particular point because it is one of contention it is one that has talked about a great deal and it is one that keeps people from fully enjoying the narrative on display here and i don't really feel like that's fair like i said while both of these characters are basically in the same role their personalities still dictate some particular scenarios when you really think about it it does not make a lot of sense for sonic to stay put in one place for too long it doesn't make sense for him to be hiding and that's basically what he was doing on the american side of things in terms of the cartoon and comic for many many years and i could see an argument where someone like sally as a commander could convince sonic to help and stay put and be a part of the team but here when amy's basically asking sonic to do the same thing he's not about it not at all they bicker and argue about it and by the end of it amy accepts that this is who sonic is and i don't know if sally would have caved as easily or would have even presented that question in the same fashion ultimately it doesn't really matter because again sally's not here i just wanted to say that in terms of this narrative i understand why amy's taking up sally's role but i also appreciate that amy is still amy in this role if that makes sense this gives her something more to do and at the same time she's still allowed have feelings for sonic and she's still allowed to grow from that loud obnoxious girl that she used to be i very clearly have a lot of love for sally but i hope you don't misinterpret that as a hatred for amy rose throughout all of this media she really feels like one of the few characters that has actually grown and i certainly like how she is portrayed in this book and it's certainly a step up from sonic forces i mean at the end of the book you still see that amy adores sonic but she has her priorities in order sonic offers her to come along with him and while that sounds like a dream come true to amy she understands that her place is here she is capable of helping people and she's gonna do exactly that so yeah that one issue got all that rambling nonsense out of me but we still have one more character to discuss before we wrap it up for the day so in terms of knuckles i would say that out of every other character from the archie series he was certainly treated with the most respect and the most growth while i didn't agree with a lot of the story choices that penders had made with the character there's a lot of really good stuff here that the games never really took advantage of and stripping all that away from knuckles feels a little disrespectful so i understand why some fans are kind of pissed with his more recent portrayals still we have to establish him in the idw book and at the same time address his role from sonic forces which i had already mentioned was as the resistance commander now if you'd read the archie books you could very easily understand how knuckles went from this isolated naive loner who got tricked by a fat boy with a big giant orb to a capable and competent leader with a group of folks that put their lives in his hands unfortunately this isn't archie knuckles and the games have never done a great job showing that particular growth yes he did gain friends as the series went on but time and again they would just reuse the same stupid oh knuckles got tricked by eggman nonsense and eventually they even gave up on that and just didn't give him anything to do honestly sonic forces has no mention of the master emerald it has no mention of the floating island and look maybe that wasn't the main focus of the game but when it comes to taking over the world and sources of power that's something that should be addressed and actually ian did just that around the release of sonic forces there were also some free digital comics that released at the same time and in these comics you can see that ian understands these characters far better than sonic team actually does the digital comic goes out of their way to explain why knuckles is not on the floating island and the idw book also addresses that particular issue and actually goes on to becoming the central focus of the first big story arc which again we will discuss in a separate video i bring this up because knuckles entire personality is wrapped around angel island and the master emerald and it feels a little weird that a lot of the games in recent years don't even address this thankfully ian does personally i don't think it makes a whole lot of sense but sonic forces is going to exist one way or the other and ian's got to ride around it and when they first show knuckles here you see that play out almost immediately sonic talks about him being the commander of the resistance and knuckles regrets all the busy work he has to do now that there's no more robots to fight he doesn't want to do all the inventory and paperwork and delegation that well amy has always done for the group but knuckles has never been too interested in himself like i said he's far more effective out there kicking some butt and i think ian agrees so this issue establishes who knuckles is and while you could see where there was a friendly rivalry between knuckles and sonic these two have learned to play off their wildly different personalities and power sets the way these two talk to each other feels like a natural growth for them through the years and i really appreciate that i also like that this knuckles is a little devoid of humor he takes things very very seriously like when these two new skunk villains show up and go all team rocket and pose all over the place sonic's laughing his spikes off and knuckles is like oh man these guys are highly coordinated and that's great because it shows sonic and knuckles and how these two characters react to the exact same situation showing you how different these two personalities are if you've never read anything having to do with knuckles prior to this you know exactly what this character is all about what he's capable of and yeah he can be a little bit dense or a bit too serious for his own good but he's not an idiot he's got a good heart he just prefers to solve problems by punching in the face and after all this again the focus shifts over to the master emerald and angel island we'll get to that in due time but through all of this you see knuckles regretting ever leaving the island at all and you could see this as a regression of his character but for all three of these characters i feel like bits and pieces of sonic forces betrayed who they are to begin with and i don't really see that as a regression i see that as refocusing their priorities being the guardian of the master emerald and angel island is not something you outgrow that will always be important that will always be necessary and being conflicted between defending his island and defending the entire world is an interesting concept to explore and they actually talk about it in the book and you see amy consoling knuckles about it which again kind of shows one of her better personality traits from the adventure days i'm just jumping all over the place here my point is all three of these characters have to get back to some sense of normalcy something that we know about these guys without betraying the story of sonic forces flynn knows these characters and i guarantee he understands that sonic forces screwed things up quite immensely and i'm sure he didn't want to be in the position where he has to fix things up before he goes forward but again this is something he had to do ever since he was brought on to write sonic comic books but having to dance around the fact that he no longer has the archie characters he has to work with sonic forces stuff with sega mandates and at the same time introduce these guys to folks who might have had no interest in sonic the hedgehog and has to get a grip on their attention and keep them on board that's a lot of stuff to juggle at once and i feel like these first few books do a very commendable job and again when we talk about the story arcs in general you are going to see a lot of themes that sonic forces could have played with but never bothered to explore but in the hands of people that care about this franchise it really shines that's not to say it's perfect again we have some glaring problems to address and there are spots in the narrative that could have been improved but very rarely do we see these characters and these narratives handled with such care there's a lot of love and respect for all things sonic here and even when ian flynn has to go out of his way to re-establish the core personalities of some of these guys there's still a lot of love and respect to build off of from even embarrassments like sonic forces like i said at the start there's a lot of potential storytelling that you can do with that theme and even if the war is over there's a lot left to explore and where i wasn't too excited to begin with i'm all on board these days so far all we've done on this show is cover the idw sonic book and the four core heroes from the games and their place in this story but today we're going to be focusing on a character made specifically for this book a very unique lemur no not that one we're talking tangle this particular lemur is an adventure loving cheery little dynamo of a gal the personification of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed she uses her long prehensile tail to take out robots in between peloton classes seriously look at her girl takes care of herself all decked out in yoga gear and look at that she even knows how to properly apply athletic tape good on you lady before we get into too much about her character specifically let's summarize issue four the book she first appears in the story follows the same basic setup as the first three issues of the idw run sonic zips through a town runs into one of his buddies they establish their relationship for the reader solve the problem and sonic speeds along to the next adventure this time sonic comes across a giant buzz bomber dropping badniks on a little town known as spiral hill village as he zips into town he finds a surprise it looks as if the resistance of beat him there but nope turns out one of the locals has started smacking robots around on her own and this is where sonic and the readers first meet tangle and i keep wanting to say tingle but like oh boy these two sociable animals immediately hit it off and hit the faces off the bad knicks the comic team is showing off all the neat tricks she can pull off with that tail and how well it works with spinballs also like sonic playing on her tail as uh i mean like he looks really into it and boy shia she's really into it i mean like really into it from there blaze shows up out of nowhere and gets more real estate in her panel than tangled in the very first anything she's ever been in from here tangle is the outsider looking in sonic is the hero of this world chatting it up with a trans-dimensional fire princess who's also a purple cat while this is all zany nonsense to tangle to sonic it's just another tuesday it makes sense to bring in one of the more obscure interesting characters from the games that doesn't get a lot of attention outside of well in blaze's case outside of the rush games maybe you've never heard of this cat that's fine tangle hasn't either both of these characters are going to be important down the road but today it's all about tangle so let's keep the focus on her like i said the comic plays out like the others robots get sorted sonic runs off but thankfully this would not be the last time tangle tangles with his crew we aren't going to break down every single adventure she's been on due to this being an ongoing comic that would immediately get outdated because i don't want to spoil anything because her journey is one worth reading we'll be dabbling in some other bits of her character that get revealed but it's just gonna be a general overview from here on out a wiki article with less information but a whole lot more charm which i mean it's basically any character bio video on youtube so what whatever we all watch them outside of sonic himself tangle became the representative of things to come for the new book prior to its launch as the news was coming out of idw obtaining the sonic license bringing staff from the archie series on board in the general direction of the book idw began teasing a brand new character for the series and if it wasn't bad enough that amy rose stole sally acorn's identity tangle has to go and steal her haircut talk about a slap in the face to archie fans can you believe the nerve ian is destroying sonic i blame every single problem on this one rider because he killed the horse guy i don't even remember his name but that's not the point the mandates aren't real bring back horse guy tingle came about because idw wanted a kick butt female character that could fight right alongside sonic and i mean those already exist but it's clear that idw and i'm sure sega and the creative team wanted to do something to help this specific sonic comics stand out from what came before i would certainly love to see some other characters show back up but failing that as long as these new guys are fleshed out and they're well written the more the merrier in my opinion and tangle is certainly a welcome addition i really like this character and how she fits into this universe because it feels like she was built from the ground up to make sense in a sonic game they picked out a specific species of animal and basically gave her a super ability namely in the form of her incredibly useful extending prehensile tail and this design process really echoes how a lot of playable characters in sonic games came about like seriously this lemur was apparently based off this rabbit design before they settled on sonic this rapid prototype got probably the furthest along in terms of design and mechanics as it was originally intended to use its ears to grab and throw items sega eventually went with the hedgehog but goodness gracious they've certainly gotten a lot of mileage out of this unused character as did namco apparently for real the more i think about it tingle is probably the closest we are ever gonna get to having clonoa in the sonic universe which just makes her that much cooler in my book ian flynn came up with the concept of the character and good old tyson hess sorted out the design tangle is born of two big sonic fans who have had years of experience on the professional end of things and it shows this feels like a character they invested a lot of creativity into and almost feels like a pitch for a new character in the games be it 2d or 3d my brain just goes wild with the possibilities of that tail as does tangle herself apparently calm it down girl i also love the prominent use of orange coloring on her clothing standing out nicely against the neutral grays of her fur and the blacks of the rest of the attire and contrasts lovely against her purple eyes tyson really understands the basics of a solid character design let alone sonic character design and every creator be it artist or writer does a lovely job bringing out the animated energy of her personality on these pages ironically she actually only exists in still images she looks desperate to jump out into a game or cartoon something where she can actually move works not just because of her power set and design but her personality is so well defined might seem weird that she just immediately is buddy buddy with these iconic characters that have weathered and won a war but she just has one of those magnetic personalities the best kind of extrovert not someone out for attention but someone who genuinely enjoys other people and i've certainly met people like this i'm sure you have too someone who can latch onto anything you say and strike up an entire conversation super capable funny energetic and will still cheer you on without a shred of sarcasm there is no patronizing just genuine enthusiasm for every little drop of life someone who can even bring the most introverted of introverts out of their shell help them overcome tragedy and help them learn to open up when it comes to whisper another character who we'll get into in another episode she is the polar opposite of tangle it's not easy for her to be a part of a group even simple one-on-one conversations stress her out sonic like tingle is a people person difference is he knows when to back off and give some space tangle does not at least not at first but get ahead of myself i love that we don't actually see the moment where tangle and whisper actually hit it off sonic walks into a scene with the two of them just talking and whisper immediately goes quiet around him she has no problem with sonic she's shy and he understands that and gives her space tangle had not even noticed this about whisper she tells sonic that whisper had just told her the funniest joke and for those that have been following along that will probably feel completely out of character for whisper what we've been presented what whisper has been willing to share it doesn't seem like this girl's even capable of laughing let alone be funny but tangle is just that easy to open up to and that cute little moment is shared between these two friends and only between these two friends and i think that's adorable and it speaks volumes to the infectious joy of tangle again we'll be dedicating an episode to whisper but i can't talk tingle without at least mentioning her this is a wonderful friendship between two completely different personalities instead of butting heads these two help balance the other out that is all i can really say without diving deep into what makes whisper tick and jumping into spoilers but just believe me when i tell you that their friendship is precious and is worth reading but whisper is not the only friend of tangle she also has a lifelong friend in jewel the beatle so can that color scheme kids because this is probably the closest we will ever get to another appearance of hypersonic hopefully the stories will develop this bug a little bit more down the road but right now all you really need to know is she's tangle's best friend and helps ground this rambunctious lemur literally keeping her alive from time to time jewel is not an adrenaline junkie like her buddy and has not really shown much in the way of courage in the few times we've seen her not that she would really need to with tangled protecting her town that actually ends up being a bit of a conflict for tangle once she gets a taste of the kind of action sonic and his buddies get up to coming back to the mundanity of spiral hill is torturous this frustration is her drive that kicks things off in the tangle and whisper mini series we'll talk about it in another video i'm not gonna spoil it here but if you don't wanna know anything about anything there are gonna be some mild spoilers going forward so just a heads up one little interesting note tangle seems to be extremely claustrophobic even wearing a mask is overwhelming for her but what's more interesting is how she knows when to dial back from the zany charm when people are counting on her this becomes apparent when she gets locked away in a safe for her this is possibly the absolute worst way to go but instead of panicking she understands the air is limited and trusts that whisper is going to bail her out this has to be one of the most terrifying situations she's ever experienced and she still uses that optimism and trust to see her through and this wouldn't be the only time and certainly not the darkest figuratively anyway this safe is probably literally the darkest situation she's ever because there's no lights and it's dark in there you even when whisper busts her out once tangle realizes the building they're in is gonna blow she grabs her wolf baby and jumps right back in i wasn't really planning on doing much outside of laying out who this character is not really list a bunch of her feats or story beats but to really get into the depth of her kindness her enthusiasm her strength of character we'd have to get into spoilers of an arc that's yet to wrap up so let's just leave it here for now down the road you will see even in the bleakest of situations tangle will be as determined as ever believing in herself and her friends that is why she fits with sonic's crew because they are heroes they are all courageous what makes them stand out is how they show their courage how they tackle these challenges set before them if you're coming into this book as a fan of the games i hope you see how much fun tango can be in a game and yeah archie fans just because i haven't talked about that book yet don't get it twisted i miss the freedom fighters too don't let my praise of this new book fool you i want him back i don't like when a wonderful set of characters is just set aside and wasted and i certainly hope that isn't the case for the idw crew either it's a new era get this girl into the games sega if you're so concerned with a unified brand identity then stop diverging timelines and dimensions sort your house out buy that horseman from penders there's one guy who's real upset about this stupid horse we've all had this thought challenge placed upon us at one point or the other would you take out someone like hitler as a baby he had not yet committed the atrocities he would later be very very well known for i mean not even deadpool got that dark it is a challenging question but let's take that moral conundrum for a spin let's add on another layer you guys remember that post that went viral a few years back the one showing hitler with a little girl there was a big post talking about how he was actually a human being and that was the actual scary thing about him how we dehumanize him to distance ourselves from this monster it caused quite the debate i remember reading articles proclaiming that humanizing him was disrespectful to the millions of victims of the holocaust while others were saying that those articles were missing the point i can honestly understand both sides of that particular debate it's not entirely the point of what i'm getting at today but it is a piece of it so just keep that in the back of your head i know we're treading into dangerous territory just hear me out here i bring this up because the story we're talking about today brings up another moral issue and it's not too dissimilar from what i'm talking about and i thought it might help to give you some real world context to help you better understand what i'm getting at maybe it wasn't super appropriate of me to preface this story with you know talking about the worst human beings in all of history but i'm getting a little bit ahead of myself let's get into it and obviously full spoilers ahead so uh buckling our story begins with sonic running around with sbo the chameleon one of the members of the chaotix detective agency they're looping around in a nondescript sonic-esque environment they're having a friendly chat while spinning around in the sky wrecking robots and sbo just casually drops oh yeah we know where eggman is and keep in mind the dude has been missing since the end of the big old war from sonic forces sonic asks why this stupid reptile buried the lead and poor little espo is just like i just i just wanted you to know how hard we worked oh you poor little purple people eater and all that work didn't really even matter they were actually tipped off to his location so sonic and espio speed along and eventually they get to a town where they are greeted by the child insect known as charmy sorry any residual archie fans who was hoping he would still be brain damaged now we're gonna we're gonna have a lot of fun talking about the rsu book kids let me tell you anyway charmy greets sonic and firmly establishes that yes he is a child and then brings out not eggman but no not robotnik either but instead mr tinker i mean yes it is eggman but apparently the dude has completely lost his memory and is now super nice and helps build and fix things and uh sonic responds appropriately yeah i don't blame him for calling bs on this one either i mean obviously he's up to something right this is clearly a stupid ruse but according to vector this crocodile man with headphones they've thoroughly interrogated and observed this guy for like days now and as far as they can tell this is legit and later on the comic tries to throw us for a loop by bringing in some patrolling badniks and sonic assumes that this is probably like a rescue party or something for eggman but he sees eggman cower away from these things when they hear they're gonna be showing up and their numbers really aren't enough to be any sort of threat they didn't even look like they were trying to look for any sort of village or anything like that they're out and about doing something else so the entire issue basically throws all the different scenarios at us that would potentially show eggman for his true colors but unfortunately for sonic he doesn't get an easy answer it'd be one thing if eggman was faking it but by every account that is just not the case tinker has zero recollection of his former life and once again we circle back to the real world horror i was alluding to at the beginning this isn't a baby who has yet to commit atrocities this man already has committed these crimes like on a horrific global scale and has done it over and over comic even shows you little flashbacks to previous games where he's nearly destroyed like the planet and you know time but that person or at least that persona is gone and once the mind is free from this hatred not free of those memories someone else has emerged one with the same smarts the same talents the same skills but also with a conscious tinker is a decent guy and he's using his skills to better the lives of the people in this town and when you're not given an out like a fake personality you need to ask yourself are you still justified in punishing what is essentially a good person can this new personality excuse all of the past crimes committed does it even matter when this new persona has no idea of any of the things that happened in the past this is important because if you do take him out are you truly morally in the right is this really justice anymore or is it simply revenge now i don't know about you but when compared to real world monsters my immediate reaction was nope doesn't matter dude's gotta go he does not get a happy ending don't give him a chance to turn back into his evil ways i'm sorry but we'll just have to live with this on our conscious smoke this sucker but this is not gonna be an easy thing for sonic to do i also love when uh sonic starts listing off eggman's death machines and it all just sounds like stupid nonsense those that was just a cute joke i love it the village elder even chimes in pointing out that regardless of the bad that he did in the past that is not the same person who showed up in their town tinker was put into jail only for the elder to find out he broke out and only to fix the door and apparently he's been here for a while helping out with any project regardless of the size and the town is better for it they all love and trust this guy the elder sums it up thusly he'd prefer to see this man who is completely different from the one he was before use his skills to better the community rather than rot away in a jail cell never understanding what he did wrong and just left to do nothing and after the bad knicks after talking with everybody sonic has seen and heard enough he agrees tinker is not the same as eggman and it looks like that nasty boy might be gone for good then they all have a hearty sitcom laugh and then tinker mentions a sonic that he hopes he'll stop by once eggman land is complete which uh you know raises some red flags and shadow seems to agree yep the issue ends with shadow and rouge showing up on the scene and uh oh goodness gracious they don't even care anymore good golly tracy what are you doing shadow is just not having any of this feel good garbage eggman has committed atrocity after atrocity it's time for him to go sonic disagrees and the comic then gives us an excuse to watch another fight between sonic and shadow and while all this is happening rouge also lets the chaotix know that she was the one who actually tipped them off about eggman's location proving that she is the better detective but you know then again she is a bat she did this to give the boys enough time to get to town to assess the situation and come to the conclusion that tinker and eggman are not the same person meanwhile sonic and shadow are i i mean i maybe it's fighting it just looks more like a power walk together to work out their frustrations and sonic is actually trying to remind shadow of all the times eggy was actually helpful giving the reader a little more lore to help flesh out the world and remind us more of sonic game shenanigans so even if you've not played the games you do have references to them but eventually sonic trips over an exposed root and stumbles i can't help but wonder how often this happens to sonic because that tree just messed up his old day and like i mean the dude was just jogging on the side of a mountain like a few panels ago i mean i guess that explains the lack of shoelaces anyway shadow then uses this opportunity to pin sonic against the tree demanding to know how he can even go over easy on the egg man after everything he's done somebody give me a high five for that egg pun that was good right that was good sega hire me for your scripts man i got egg jokes for days so yes this seems to be what is riling shadow up he does not understand why sonic can be so lenient in this situation when all eggman has ever tried to do is kill the guy oh shadow you do care i mean i guess ian is known for dropping hints at relationships after all sonic reminds shadow that he at one point also attempted to kill sonic and destroy the world i mean i don't know if that's entirely fair to compare the two especially considering that eggman has tried over and over again to conquer the world and i mean for a while he did and also again demolished time but shadow sees his point he was given a second chance why shouldn't tinker that's probably because tinker is a completely different identity that came about by amnesia and shadow had to make the conscious choice to change his ways but fine whatever the conflict is over and it dawns on shadow that sonic was stalling him from i mean i don't i don't know i guess he was just trying to cool him off or something i don't know why shadow is like shocked about this it's not like they weren't eventually going to get back to tinker where is he going to go well whatever shadow teleports his way back to town and demands to see this egg man land tinker was talking about and it turns out that it's actually just a cute little theme park based off badniks or maybe just the bad nick husks i guess i don't know doesn't really matter either way it seems that shadow is appeased okay now everyone's cooled off tinker is not really sure what the big fuss was over just a silly name and well done ian i see what you did there and sonic actually asks where the name even came from and tinker just says it just came to him which does give sonic a little cause for concern is this potentially alluding to his memories coming back it's hard to tell but sonic's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt now that everybody's hunky dory sonic will pop by every now and again to check in on tinker and everyone agrees to just leave him be the end oh and then it turns out that the actual mastermind behind everything is a a different eggman oh comics you're so crazy these cliffhangers are just oh so excited okay so let's talk about the tinker story for now these two comics did something a little bit different we still get to see sonic fighting robots with some more buddies we get some inkling of their personality and dynamic as well as some of their abilities when they're investigating the imperial city looking for signs of eggman rouge is back and once again showing she is playing multiple angles at any given time and always going in for the long con with any situation but her heart is in the right place she knew of eggman's whereabouts long before anybody else knew that it was only a matter of time before shadow caught wind and helped mitigate damage got the info down the pipeline to the chaotix who would then bring it over to sonic to help give them time to build up a case for tinker's innocence i mean that's kind of convoluted when you think about it but it's fine it at least displays what these characters are all about we also pretty thoroughly define shadow's role in this comic while he has grown into his own character the games have always been a little bit loosey-goosey with his interpretation especially since you know they kind of played out his entire arc in sonic adventure 2. and as you will see later on in this comic fans feel he gets a little bit too vegeta at times but for this story specifically i like this shadow just fine once his arc was completed in the games there was very little reason for him to fight sonic which is a problem when the entire purpose of a dark mirror character is to well fight the hero and i know that statement is going to invite so much ire from shadow fans so uh by all means leave your essays down in the comments but however you feel about it that's what his character was designed to be and well that's what siga keeps trying to use him for as sloppily as they do it and it does become a problem to give an excuse for sonic and shadow to fight when they're on the same page but in this particular case when you have such an interesting and complicated moral dilemma before you i feel like this is a good enough excuse as any to have these two fight each other and they both react appropriately to their character in my opinion this comic gives us a challenging issue that brings a lot of morality into question and i believe both the character's motivations here are justified it's not hard to understand where shadow is coming from doesn't matter what tinker is now the countless times he caused chaos as eggman is enough of an excuse to take him out regardless of how many different times he changes his name sonic still appeals to his better side reminding him of the importance of redemption giving those who have caused pain to others a second chance to do right in the world and sonic's got some clout so shadow as well as sbl give him the benefit of the doubt and go with his decision to leave tinker b the comic does give us a challenging question and no it does not leave us lingering on an answer sonic makes a decisive choice and everybody else just falls in line with it and you know maybe kids don't go to dictators when thinking about this stuff but there's still a good lesson to be learned here and you really can't have sonic being a jerk at the same time espio and shadow aren't exactly being unreasonable here while shadow does not tolerate nonsense and does have a bit of an aggressive streak to him he's still not being one note here he does cool off and agree to leave tinker b even though you can see he clearly doesn't agree with this particular idea i think the overall message sonic is trying to send is not every problem needs to be solved with violence he ends his feud with shadow not by beating him into submission in fact sonic is the one at shadow's mercy but he still uses reason and compassion to end the conflict and while i did joke about the running outside of pinning shadow to a wall he doesn't actually attack the guy just dodges him and eggs him on to help burn off some energy maybe it's not fair that the eggman persona disappeared without anyone getting a chance to take him to task for the crimes he's committed but in sonic's eyes that doesn't mean tinker should suffer the consequences he sees him and treats him as a different person but while this is a good lesson to pass on to a younger audience it does not go unchallenged like i said in a previous video i feel like this interpretation of sonic might be a little bit too compassionate honestly i kind of miss him being a little bit of a jerk the corporate mascot has got to tell kids to wash their hands don't talk to strangers and if someone touches you in a place or in a way that makes you uncomfortable that's no good lost track here just to meme out a little bit but my point is sonic's gotta be the good guy here but that does not mean his morality cannot be called into question because well being as cynical as possible here come on man you know robotnik's gonna be back eventually regardless of how scrambled his eggs are they are gonna revert back to the status quo at some point but also shadow and svo aren't moody or characters just for the sake of it these guys have seen some real dark stuff and they're the type of guys who are gonna make tough calls they aren't gonna waste time talking about their feelings they see a problem and they're gonna go for the clear and obvious solution no matter how brutal it may be and honestly that's not a bad lesson either because as we will find out they're not entirely wrong here really you can go either way sonic's point of view shadow's point of view and while the comic does lead into one side a little bit more than the other it does not dismiss the other side entirely which i think is important so what about you i presented the story to you and regardless of what happens next just put yourself in that position you have to decide the fate of someone who has done terrible things but has zero memory of it or of who they were it's easy enough to say you'd pop him in the face and be done with it but like if it were me having to decide what happens to an actual human being right there in front of me i honestly don't know what i'd do this silly tropey story has a lot more bubbling under the surface to make this goofy narrative work it's not exactly perfect but it does a commendable job showing all sides of this touchy argument and again we also have to deal with the crazy plot twist of there being another egg man out there potentially now we've already met the major players of this book we've even met a couple new friends and we know that eggman is not a part of the current arc or at least he's no threat to anybody on the playing field currently yet his army is still out and about and causing problems for our heroes and in an attempt to solve this mystery this leads sonic entails to his still-functioning egg fleet tails hands off his weird little yellow doohickey that's been in all the modern games to sonic tell him to get to the first computer he can find to download data sonic heads on down to the main ship and it almost immediately runs into dr eggman but before he could get through his evil monologue sonic calls him out he explains that he just ran into eggman and he knows he's fine and he's not here so the devil wastes no time to reveal his true identity neo-metal sonic exclaiming that he was actually going through his upgrade while the war was happening and he arrived way too late to be of any sort of assistance so now it's his mission to retrieve eggman and conquer the world in his name the rest of the issue is sonic and neo facing off against each other in the kerfuffle neo manages to copy sonic's bio data a thing he could do back in sonic heroes which gives him a little bit of an edge in the fight i also want to point out that i really love that giant ninja star spin dash that neo has i think that looks really cool sonic takes out the guns and pops off the ship to be saved by tails ending this issue we're running through this one fairly briefly because it's really only here to tell you that neo's behind it all but at the same time this is doing something i've been wanting to see from neo since way back in sonic heroes and i'll probably whine about this whenever i cover that game but i always wanted to see a proper fight with this form of metal sonic and the game never really gave us that but here we get to see his actual power with face form and with sonic's copied abilities and while i wasn't a big fan of the artists and the static images and the fight scenes their talents really shine this looks really cool and if you've been paying attention to the archie series you know that ian was building up to some sort of sonic heroes tie-in story so i'm glad that some of those elements were brought over into the idw book so as we went over eggman has been out of the picture since the end of sonic forces but for some reason his robot army is back up and running at this point being issue 8 sonic knows who's behind it but he still doesn't know what the grand plan is he takes it upon himself to bust into one of eggman's old facilities while it might not have up-to-date intel about troop movements it might at the very least still hold strategies eggman had hiding up his sleeve before the end of the war it's better than sitting around waiting for something to happen i also want to note real quick this facility has given me strong vibes of the old sad am robotropolis i know it's not one for one and it's probably more in line with sonic forces designs but that's where my brain went anyway and yes sonic makes a very obvious reference to a smash hit tv series step it up i'm kidding obviously this is a direct reference to the smash hit franchise playstation all-stars anyway sonic is a little in over his head right from the get-go he almost gets crushed by a door but is saved by a pink bush phrasing oh god what is the sonic fanbase done to me he then is saved once again but this time by silver the hedgehog if you don't know silver is a hedgehog from the future with telekinetic powers look if you're on board with the speedy and blue variety you can handle some psychic powers it's fine ian flynn is doing what he did with tangle using this issue as an opportunity to introduce a new character but also bring in one of the more obscure game characters at the same time silver is especially helpful here because he gives us a little more background on the elements of the war that well sonic forces mostly skips as well as help provide some more insight on whisper who doesn't really speak a whole lot for herself but more on her when we get to her here in the comics he's portrayed a lot like ian used to have him in the archie series the guy's an optimist but i'm also a realist forces sit down god no but he's actually an optimist in this book he's spent so much time alone he is so happy and so eager to be spending time with these people he considers his friends and like so many glossed over elements ian does explain why silver is back yet again in sonic's time but that is yet another element we'll have to talk about later sonic assumes that silver is actually the one who first opened that door for him turns out that wasn't the case but if it wasn't silver then who well no time to ponder on that because now both hogs need to have their spine saved seriously sonic you've been here like five minutes and this is like the third save in a row pay attention man both sonic and silver see something familiar about the blast that laid out the robot sonic has an inkling of what sort of energy felt the robot but silver has an idea of who shot it in the first place this is where he goes over the legend of the guardian angel of the battlefield this mysterious figure who never joined the resistance during the eggman war but would still help from afar sniping robots or infiltrating facilities such as this one without ever getting caught this angel was so good at it that they would actually turn the tides of battles and one could understandably assume that this angel didn't even exist but silver is not only a believer but also a huge fan as he was actually saved by the angel more than once even though he's got like a ton of amazing abilities like seriously how is everyone so useless without sonic around and look at this panel come on silver that's just an egg pond it looks less like whisper was saving his life and more like she was interrupting a rather intimate night between these two lovebirds and jokes like that are the reason why sega won't acknowledge my existence once sonic is up to speed he notes that the shot that took out the badnik seemed to be a form of wisp energy but was far more focused than your standard wispon which are usually designed to clear crowds not pull off precision shots they move further into the base and see someone being bested by a door and this is also a cute little way to display this unique wispon weapon as she cycles through different powers trying to open the door so is this the angel what about that face is it a robot is this an enemy well one way or the other sonic doesn't need to worry about being shot because he's friends with the ammunition don't worry guys this isn't shadow the hedgehog sega's learned their lesson bullets don't belong in sonic's world that is unless they have eyeballs you can kill old men and children but you better make it fun and flashy first yeah so these are the wisps if you weren't a fan of their continuous appearances in the games sorry to tell you they're back and they play a big part in this comic like seriously sonic saved the day in issue 3 by literally explaining the premise of sonic colors if you weren't aware these weird little aliens were the gimmick in sonic colors where sonic would absorb one of these dudes and temporarily have a superpower like laser beams rockets or drills they would be re-incorporated in other games but specifically for sonic forces instead of jumping into a character they would inhabit these funky little guns called wispins these came in different varieties depending on your wisp power of choice and were used by the custom character to clear out large groups of robots or grab a secondary wisp power to use as a means to traverse to higher areas to grab red rings or find different paths i know it feels like i'm getting a bit off track but you need to understand what the wisps are to understand who whisper is and i uh actually can't believe how long it took me to realize that whisper also was a play off the word wisp that's given the information that silver has laid out sonic has all his blues clues he needs to deduce a few things but silver is all sorts of excited to finally meet his hero and calls out to her she freaks out and retreats to a hiding spot silver doesn't understand what he did wrong and sonic points out that she didn't join the resistance or really interact with anybody for a reason and whatever that reason might be it's clear she doesn't do well in crowds or with people in general it seems sonic calls out to her thanking her for the assist and apologizing for silver for coming on so strong suddenly a bunch of wisps was i really hate saying the plural of that word anyway these stupid things pop out and they greet the hedgehog who had saved their world back in colors this is what finally pushes whisper to come out and introduce herself even out in the open whisper still doesn't give much more than quietly saying her name and the rest of the issue is the three of these guys busting into the core of the base to take out this lovely sonic adventure reference once again cutting back on dialogue to show some more fun action and while whisper is not much of a talker she still expresses herself through action and the action of her wisps she gets caught under some debris during the fight and her ghost babies pop out of her gun to defend her but thankfully they don't really need to put their lives on the line as silver comes in to save the day once he clears the robots he offers his hand to whisper she might not see herself as much of a team player but she's obviously put together quite the team all the same and he would be honored to be a part of it which gets a quiet maybe out of the lone wolf after things calmed down whisper catches a glimpse of the eggman logo which sets her off as you can see as she's finally opening her eyes whenever she raises her voice or opens those pretty peepers you can tell things are getting pretty serious her weapon forms into a hammer and she goes towards the computers and sonic has to stop her telling her that there is valuable information that they need to stop eggman obviously eggman has done something to this poor girl but to break that down now we'd have to get into spoilers so that's a story for another time we finish off with sonic and silver discovering exactly what is going on with the resurrected robot army and this is again another element where the comic book is sort of covering up some plot holes from sonic forces issue seven explains why there was a phantom of metal sonic instead of you know the real deal and the end of both seven and eight allude to the fact that knuckles is off the island and if you're a longtime fan that's a big glaring issue well fans weren't the only one that took notice neo-metal sonic did as well and with knuckles distracted from the war and the aftermath of said war he invades angel island and makes a throne on top of the master emerald and it just looks awesome we're not gonna spend a whole lot of time with neometal this arc is really all we get but it's good to see some imagery that we're not gonna see anywhere else in sonic media it's not my favorite design but for an evil overlord version of sonic's copy it was severely underutilized in the game and we're not done seeing what ian has in store for this version of the robotic hedgehog once the heroes discover what metal is up to they gather all the friends that we've been introduced to so far in the previous issues all together in resistance hq now that we have the established cast it's time to team them up and put them to work for their first big battle together knuckles appropriately freaks out since he's been helping out down here with leading the resistance he's left his home abandoned and with this his priorities are realigned back to what he's always been known for the guardian of the master emerald and angel island they discuss plans on how they're gonna tackle this and knuckles of course demands beyond the team that is going to face metal directly they also show off burning blaze which is surprising that blaze got her super transformation before sonic in this book but i'm not complaining it's nice to see her and she suggests that she could go take on neo metal tail shut set down just in case metal copies her bio data and potentially her burning transformation after they set up a plan they take off towards angel island and on the lead up sonic has a quick word with whisper thanking her for tagging along even though he understands that groups aren't really her thing they allude to blaze's past and her trust issues and that conversation is with probably one of the warmest personalities in the sonic universe that being amy and they even have a little poker game between a lot of the rest of the cast there's just a lot of cute little character moments that really make these guys shine it also alludes to backstories that long time players and fans are already aware of but helps inform new readers i just really like these interactions this is really cool but the quiet moments must come to an end as they arrive at angel island sonic and knuckles take their extreme gear which is from sonic riders i know a lot of people have focused on those being here for some reason i don't know i thought this was a cute little nod and blaze transforms into burning plays tails crash plans their ship into the island and it is time to attack sally i'm sorry i mean amy commands the teams and tells them what to do sending the chaotix off onto one direction tails whisper and tangle in another band quickly realizing that well shadow's already off doing his own thing so that's kind of useless and we really get to see this team show off what they can do and some of their insane powers something that could have probably been really nice in sonic forces like in all seriousness if you're gonna be doing a story about wartime it might be cool to see what the soldiers are up to instead of you know just the main hero but make no mistake this is still sonic's story as once we're done with the showcase of all of our heroes abilities we then turn to sonic and knuckles as they track down the master emerald and in turn neometal's location and man this is this is just so cool the resting place of the master emerald has now become a throne room for neometal and it's so cool seeing these iconic sonic locations repurpose into something sinister this looks awesome knuckles of course is pissed off and goes charging at the robot but before he can land his first strike he transforms into super neo-metal sonic isn't that just a mouthful of adjectives there's a lot of cool stuff happening right here even in the tagline for the next issue you can tell they're alluding to sonic and knuckles and the grand finales of those games or well knuckles finale specifically and while it was awesome seeing knuckles take on super mecha sonic in that game by himself it is still awesome seeing sonic and knuckles team up against this version of the robot that's something we really couldn't see back in the genesis game but something i actually kind of wanted for the longest time seeing these two rivals come together to take on a stronger foe it's also alluding to a few things like dbz of course and i wouldn't be surprised if super mario bros z had some inspiration behind this fight the writer of the story is a big dork he loves all this stuff and it's just kind of cool seeing all of this come together here in this fight and this is something i would have loved to seen at the end of sonic heroes i would have loved to see a fight between this robot and the heroes of that game you know before the big stupid transformation i i just love this it only lasts a couple pages and sonic and knuckles understandably get their asses handed to them but this fight was a payoff for multiple reasons it's very fanservicey it's very silly but i i love it i love it so much meanwhile we go back to the group outside who is still taking on eggman's army here we see whisper throw out the diamonds so the laser can blast about and shoot down foes we see tangle utilize her tail to redirect cannons we see the chaotix utilize their skills same with rouge amy and tails and blaze it's important to show the entire cast of heroes doing their part yes neometal is the biggest threat but there's still an entire fleet outside that needs to be dealt with and they do it handily and just for a page they cut back to eggman or now mr tinker and show him get carted off by a couple of skunks who we'll talk about another time we jump back and tails is now inside of one of the egg fleets ships they'll be using that as their ride home we dip back to sonic knuckles fight against neo and they're still having a tough time of it and that's an adorable meme reference there with unleashing the final form he's just toying with these guys and they don't really serve any kind of a challenge to him then out of nowhere shadow shows up and stabs the dude now we'll have to talk about shadows characterization in the idw book at some point because a lot of folks have a problem with it but all you really need to know for this version of shadow in the very least is he is quick efficient brutal and a bit arrogant he disrupts the power siphoning from the master emerald to neometal and he reverts back to his regular blue form sonic warns him to back off before neo copies his bio data shadow pays him no heed saying that his bio data wouldn't be enough for him to transform and neo quickly corrects that by saying no dog i can i can transform just fine sonic knuckles and shadow retreat out of the throne room and neo transforms into the master overlord very similar to the metal overlord transformation from sonic heroes but now he also has the power of the master emerald merged in with his body so yeah we've gone full on anime with this nonsense overlord has brand new powers and begins attacking the three heroes sonic says he has a plan when they realize that super sonic and burning blaze are not something they can rely on this time playing is simply they'll distract the robot so knuckles can go and rip the gem out of his chest which is uh pretty mindless but i mean it's it's to the point the guy's got a big green weak spot might as well take advantage of that everyone begins attacking the robot all at once showing just how inefficient having a giant stupid body is when you have all these tiny little insects crawling around on you insects with an insane amount of superpowers and really there isn't that much of a fight when he's in this final transformation there's psychic abilities there's fire abilities there's bombs there's chaos control there's insane strength and tails has a giant ship that he runs into the side of the robot and while all of this is happening knuckles burrows out the master emerald in probably the cutest reaction i've ever seen from the character he returns the emerald back to the island and it resumes floating in the sky and metal sonic has returned to normal all in all there was a lot you could do with this fight and i understand the complaints i see from people when they think that neo was defeated a little too easily and you know they probably could have dragged this out or they probably could have been a little bit more clever on how they defeated him or this big giant dragon version of neo could have put up a little bit more of a fight i think ultimately the point was just having a first arc that really brought these characters together and in that sense i think it did the job quite well whisper and tangle look like sonic characters they have fun abilities that i would love to see in a game as much as i love my freedom fighters i can't really say i want to play any of them in a video game so it's nice to see these characters mix in so well with the video game characters and ultimately it was nice to see neo metal again it was nice to see super neo metal the action was fun splashy and beautifully drawn and this is a nice simple story that helps build out the world helps reorganize character priorities help helps re-establish characters it's just a really solid comic book made for kids it's very frustrating starting back from square one for long time comic book fans that's something that you kind of have to get used to in superhero books and i can tell you archie fans probably got quite frustrated when they rebooted not once but twice in that book then had it canned completely only to completely restart with idw that said it was nice to have some legacy hinted at in this comic book fortunately not with the archie characters but with the video games because now we have two games sonic forces and heroes specifically where i personally feel like they didn't hit the potential i personally wanted from them but these comics help expand those ideas and play with them in ways that i think a lot of fans wanted to see there could have been more with the battles both with super neo and master overlord or master chief whatever the hell he's called i absolutely agree with those particular criticisms but the moments around them and the moments leading up to them were quite charming these characters do fit into specific tropes but they help fill out a robust and diverse cast of characters you don't have redundancies like you would find in the archie book who had to pile on characters from the games and from the old comics and everything else again that doesn't mean i don't want those characters back eventually that just means i'm plenty satisfied with what we have here even if it's not perfect again we will talk about shadow another time all in all this was a strong start for a book that had really big shoes to fill shoes that had admittedly been walked in for years at this point by the artisan writers of the archie series and shoes that did admittedly walk around in some pretty bad comic books honestly like ian's stuff's not perfect i know i'm giving him praise upon praise but like there's a lot of weird stuff in the archie book regardless a legacy is there it lasted as long as it did for specific reasons ones i'm excited to dig into and even with bringing the creative team over into idw even with a more streamlined continuity there was still a challenge in winning people over and admittingly you go on twitter you're going to see that a lot of people still aren't completely satisfied whatever they brought in hints of storylines that we're going to be playing out in the archie book they did a really decent job characterizing all these personalities even if amy is now filling in roles that she previously didn't have or shadow was a little bit more arrogant and angry than fans that felt like he had gotten over in the video games for the status quos these characters have to fill these tropes they have to fill they work well in this story they work well in this universe and overall i'm satisfied so let's not ramble on anymore that was the first arc of the idw sonic book and yet there is still a lot left we have to cover who were those two mysterious skunk guys and who is this sinister platypus and what do they want with mr tinker what will be the fate of metal sonic we'll be covering that in future episodes and if you don't want to wait for those i highly recommend just going out and buying the books i'm sure you can still order them physically if you need something on your shelf or if you want to stay safe in these troubled times you can always digitally buy them which makes reading incredibly convenient saves you a few trees and it helps support talented artists and writers who are still working on this book it's not done yet it actually just came back into circulation after a few months hiatus but yeah that's gonna be it for today i do apologize for the delay in this specific episode youtube's quieted down quite a bit for me i've actually had to go back into full time at my actual job so videos aren't coming out as quickly as possible but i'm still working on them as frequently and as diligently as possible and if you like my content well i'm looking at the numbers there's plenty of things outside of sonic for you to explore on this channel and if you want to support me at all you can pitch into the patreon like all of these amazing people have and again thank you guys so much for your support i can't thank you enough i'm going to be rolling out some new rewards for the guys who have been here for a while as well some brand new tiers i think you guys are gonna really like for right now though a single dollar will get you a patron roll on our discord access to old podcasts i made before i started the game apologist channel it's a little rough around the edges but i promise you're gonna love my friends they're hilarious natural entertainers and it'll get your name at the end of episodes so that sounds interesting to you links in the description down below as well as the aforementioned discord that's really grown recently and i'm quite proud of that community spent an unhealthy amount of time in there so if you want to chat it up with me you'll probably find me in there some talented folks that are a part of the community are actually putting together monthly gaming challenges where we reward them with exclusive stuff and it's all a lot of fun just head over there if you're interested again links in the description down below guys thank you so much for your time today thank you for watching and i will see you next time to toot sonic speed readers let me show you just you just

Channel: Game Apologist

Views: 90,085

Rating: 4.9606743 out of 5

Keywords: idw sonic, complete sonic comic, complete coverage, compilation, sonic speed reading, battle for angel island, sonic forces, tails, amy rose, sonic, super neo metal sonic, sonic heroes, ian flynn, sonic comic, tangle the lemur, whisper the wolf, sonic comic review, flynn fixes forces, sonic forces fixed, sonic forces sequel, mr tinker, dr eggman, shadow the hedgehog, shadow vs sonic, rouge the bat, sega, new sonic comic, angel island, metal sonic vs sonic, blaze, emeralds

Id: 9qMaE0JoyOQ

Length: 70min 48sec (4248 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 05 2020