We need to talk about Shadow. | Sonic Speed Reading

[Music] welcome back to sonic speed reading and welcome to crisis city also known as sunset city as rouge explains to sonic for some reason what a great name i think i'll steal that and use it for a podcast yeah i know this is just here to explain what this place is and give some weight to the importance of it for the reader and you know a little bit of world building here it's cute it's fine just i don't know why rouge is explaining this to sonic i also love at the end of the page we see some of the zombots climbing up the side of buildings and this shows us that nowhere is actually safe from these things like they can just crawl up the side of buildings with ease but they just look like they got distracted and just decided to go dink around somewhere else it looks funny to me i don't know anyway we waste no time with the action as we see sonic spinball his way through a horde he's trying to make his way through this mess to find survivors and also quickly remind the reader that the more he touches zombots the more his own virus spreads so he has to be careful and he does indeed find survivors on the upper floors of these buildings and as we just saw zombots can reach some so sonic can't waste any time he's got to get him out of there but just as he's about to pave his way through some zombie boys a reign of gunfire impedes his movement turns out omega has shown up and if you don't know anything about omega he's a rogue eggman badnik who uh hates eggman and all of his badniks to omega these are all eggman robots and therefore must be eliminated sonic tries to explain that these are not the normal badniks these are innocent people that have been transformed by the metal virus and [Laughter] and then we see one of ian flynn's strengths when it comes to characters i love the way he writes omega because he just holds up one of these stupid zombots and just asks sonic is this a robot song's kind of stuttered around like yeah i mean i guess was this created by eggman well i mean technically well then it must be destroyed shouldn't it cut and dry i love the robots of this series [Laughter] but sonic's gonna leave him be because as it turns out omega's not actually doing anything to these guys at this point rouge makes contact with sonic directly and in turn they start directing survivors towards the truck so they can get them out of town they meet up at grand gold flicky hotel i love that statue and here sonic and rouge kind of catch each other up a little bit here rouge points out that this assault seems a little sloppy even for eggman standards and sonic points out that it's because that he's no longer controlling the zombots sonic asks about shadow's location and rouge responds that he's off to pick up a truck how sweet we then have some more survivors get to the barricade and again this is reminding readers that sonic can't touch anybody so he's got to get creative with how he deals with zombots in saving people's lives he runs into omega again asking him what he thinks he's doing he's got to keep zombots away from the hotel and omega tells him that there are too many targets the enemy's advancing from both directions because that's right there's a second wave of zombots coming in song's about ready to deal with them but then he notices a large mass making its way through the horde it's a semi of course it is and from it sepps shadow the hedgehog looking quite pissed sonic tries to sass him and shadow's not having any of it sonic tries to tell him to chill out because he was joking and again shadow is just not in the mood he points out that if he had destroyed eggman in windmill village none of this would be happening and then i guess sonic's trying to go for a pity because he's like hey i'm dealing with the infection too and shadow's like you get what you deserve bro i don't know what to tell you hey look how pissed sonic is he can't refute any of this and i can't really blame shadow for being ticked off with the guy and you would think from here we would get an interesting dynamic between the two but let's keep going sonic realizing that this isn't the time we're placed to get into it with shadow tells them that he's gonna go take care of his infection thanks him for bringing the truck and tells him not to let the zombots touch him shadow says i know and sonic says if it happens you should be fast enough to run it off like me to which shadow responds cowards run i win yeah that seems about on point for a shadow let's keep going shadow touches base with omega giving him some orders to how to contain the situation leaving shadow to take on the zombot horde himself which he shoots some lights at him and kicks him with his shoes and flips around i guess i don't really know what he's actually accomplishing but you know whatever we get back to rouge who's directing survivors towards the truck notices that shadow's making a mess within the middle of the horde points out that he's being reckless as we know shadow to be nothing wrong here nothing whatsoever and then we get back to shadow who is just fighting zombots pointing out that they're quite resilient oh man you straight up curb stomps a zombie with those sweet kicks of his and gets up with a picasso face being impressed shadow decides to show off his sick break dancing skills and also points out that the metal virus can't infect the ultimate life form i don't know where he got the data for that but sure this is all on the up and up so far no problems whatsoever we then get back to sonic who is running around on the outskirts of town and pointing out something we i don't think have ever seen in the comics unless i'm mistaken he's actually getting winded he takes a quick second to reflect on everything he's lost and wonders if it's his own fault and then quickly points out to himself that no he can't be blamed for the actions of others and then zips back into town cut back to shadow who is zipping his way through the zombots again and then just just grabs one i guess i don't know why he just decides i'm gonna touch this one and throw it into other ones and once you know it he's got some icky goo all over him anyway shadow now has the infection and rouge tells him run she and omega will hold things down from here and shadow says i don't run and begins to just straight up punch zombots totally in line with everything we know about shadow so far no problems here omega can't provide backup for shadow because there are just way too many of them for him to take care of and well once you know it shadow gets overtaken by the horde sonic makes his way back into the middle of town and rouge tells sonic to handle shadow in songs like handle i think you're the only one he listens to which he clearly didn't but as sonic finds out what rouge actually meant was that he had to take care of zombot shadow yeah totally fine no problems here okay so before we break down everything we just witnessed let's carry on through issue 20 first we're going to spend most of our time with sonic vs zombot shadow sonic quickly overpowers shadow pointing out that a healthy shadow would have seen that move coming and countered it but now he has to deal with shadow on top of a bajillion zombots they fight for a little bit and sonic sends him off into a crowd of zombots and sonic's quickly getting tuckered out the situation has become completely uncontrollable so sonic just tells rouge to take off and he'll hold off the zombot's best he can at this point omega jumps into the fray to help out or well that's what sonic assumes anyway omega's actually here because eggman robots remain and this must be corrected violently again read this book for yourself the way they write omega is just fantastic but while they're dealing with all these zombots sonic notice that shadow isn't there and then notices [Laughter] the donut says he's chasing after the truck just look at this he just looks like a distracted dog chasing down a car like if they've done it from the perspective of the truck or like closer to shadow like making it really seem scary and dangerous but it's all in the background i don't know but it's just me he just looks ridiculous oh my god oh that's great sonic does his best to redirect shadow back into the party but as he quickly learns shadow is not a normal zombot and chucks sonic to the side omega and sonic are quickly losing ground here and omega points out that sonic's infection is getting worse and he should run off sonic's telling him that he's not going to abandon a friend it'll make a response that we're not friends you're in the way of my massacre i love this robot sonic points out the obvious that omega's ammo isn't actually getting anything done so how about they just get out of there while they still have energy and omega just flat out refuses and then grabs shadow on the face and just smothers his face into the ground like the bad dog he is gotta rub his nose in it sonic points out wait that's shadow and omega's like nope he's another robot don't care and shadow responds in kind by just ripping apart omega oh my goodness sonic tries to reason with shadow zombot and it's not going well at all and quickly omega is getting torn apart and sonic is being overpowered by shadow and the other zombots but thankfully at the last moment he's saved by the return of silver as you might recall he was taken out of commission when they first took on starline but looks like he's fully recovered and tails is with him as well with his telekinetic abilities he gets all the zombots floating around him and clears away so sonic can get out of there tails in turn picks up the head of omega the only thing that remains but thankfully that sass is still intact but shadow's not having any of it as he leaps off the side of the building and almost makes contact with silver thankfully he doesn't and the two fly boys get right the hell out of there so sonic has gotten the survivors out of there but at the cost of a couple allies they meet up at restoration hq and at this point it's really sonic just touching base with all the other surviving main cast characters starting off with cream who seems to be in decent spirits despite the fact that she recently lost her to chow she catches sonic up with what's happening at restoration hq pointed out that there are a lot of refugees and not a lot of room for them and everyone's kind of in a bummer mood but she's doing her best with snacks and candies and doing her best to remain happy so in turn everybody else will be happy as well she guides sonic over to amy rose's office and general points out that sonic is still infected therefore he's denied axis until cream scolds him and they let him on through amy who's been recently made charge of restoration is clearly in over her head and she's doing her pest sonic heads over to rouge who asks him about shadow sonic responds sorry he's gone now that amy's off the phone her and sonic catch up but the reunion is short-lived as she goes back to the radio and i guess echo 3 echo 13 and echo 11 went down on turtle shell island oh man i should have named my podcast turtle shell island i want to go to turtle shell island oh anyway yeah sonic leaves cause he's all bummed out turns out everything's going pretty garbagey for the entire world he then runs into vector and espio who have just woken up from their naps they in turn ask him how he's doing and sonic points out that he's taking little naps here and there but he can't really do much else than that otherwise the infection is going to take hold of him they part ways off to find charmy as they still don't know what happened to him even though we know what did the clearly exhausted sonic then touches base with tails and silver and now that silver's awake there's something sonic's been wanting to discuss namely why he's come back from the future again sonic points out that silver had mentioned that his world was all metallic and lifeless and wonders if this was because of the metal virus silver is confident that that is the case but sonic doesn't remember silver mentioning any zombots silva responds that it's because he didn't see any and he's hoping that that won't be a mystery they have to solve song then sees how omega is doing who's just being a violent head so he's fine tails points out that he can rebuild him but it's going to take some time because eggman tech is notoriously weird but now we get to the actual point of why sonic is here bothering his best bud tails today was a close call it was probably the worst that sonic has dealt with in terms of the zombie virus so far and we have to know if tails is any closer to finding a cure for this entire mess unfortunately tails just doesn't have enough data but he might have a means to collect more tails points out that sonic speed is somehow combating the metal virus it isn't completely but it is consistently holding it back so he built a nice little biometric sensor that sonic can wear on his wrist so basically a fitbit long and short of it tails is going to take readings from sonic while he's running out and about in the world to see if they can find some sort of solution from him so while everything seems to be going to pot we might still yet have a chance to beat this thing which is all the hope sonic really needs right now he's kind of desperate for it he looks really tuckered out but we end things with dr starline who we haven't seen for the last couple issues he sits by himself somewhat dejected having to admit to himself that eggman has no plan to control the virus they've got some tests scheduled for tomorrow but starline still feels like eggman's overlooked or forgotten one of his many many assets so he digs through his files to see if there's anything that can help get this virus in check and comes across the lost world project well i wonder if anything's going to come from that and i wonder if we're going to see the return of a fan favorite villain but that is where we are going to end things in terms of coverage for today but we're not going to wrap up the episode just yet i did say at the front that i wanted to wait till the end of the zombot virus saga before i kind of give my general thoughts on the story altogether that said i also pointed out that we would stop at some point to really pick apart and analyze one specific subject and that subject is shadow because this has been a hot topic for fans for quite a while and i can't just flat out ignore it so let's get into it okay so to anyone looking from the outside in you might be wondering what exactly is the big deal here if you don't know any better you just see this guy as another dark mirror villain it's a well-worn trope at this point hell even an expectation if you have a protagonist you need to have an evil version of them running around somewhere and shadow looks to be just that or at least that's what your average person would assume just by taking in his design and in terms of story almost everything makes sense here especially through the lens of trophy zombie fiction but for long time sonic fans shadow fans specifically this felt very out of character shadow's actions in this comic goes against a lot of what has been established back in the adventure era of the games because let's be real if you love those games you probably love shadow the hedgehog because the narrative through line was shadow we get to know what makes him tick uncover his origins and purpose and most importantly we get to see him grow as a character more so than anyone else in those stretch of games those are sometimes called the dark ages of the sonic franchise and while not a fan of that term you could take it quite literally because all of those games revolve around the dark hedgehog even when he's just a part of the ensemble cast his narrative is usually the most interesting portion of the game's story he was the badass new bad guy who turned out to have a lot more going on under that moody exterior and i've gone on record saying i'm not the biggest fan of the stories told in those games but i like them well enough to certainly understand why people attached to those projects as passionately as they did we were in a brave new era of video game storytelling and for a lot of kids of the day this was their first taste of more complex characters plots and motivations it's honestly no wonder there are so many fans of this era despite them being as notorious as they were in the wider gaming world and adventure fans generally focus a lot more on the story than fans of the earlier classic games or later boost games because the story was a major focus of the adventure games so it's not much of a surprise many of them would turn to the comics for a more compelling narrative especially in a time when many of those adventure fans have not been too happy with some more recent game scripts and that's kind of the point of all these comics you can't play a comic you're here because you love these characters and you want to spend a little more time with them in their world but that only works when those characters are staying true to well their character and here we have shadow acting arrogant and reckless easily one of the most powerful characters in the cast and he's taken out by grabbing a zombot what he ignores sonic he ignores his teammates and he ignores a lot of his own history in terms of tackling desperate situations such as this so yeah i get why a lot of fans are really upset with this issue under all of that dark fur lies the heart of a hero loyal to a fault cunning and tactical yet here he is getting taken out from his own sloppiness so yeah you can understand the frustration but at the same time i also get why he was taken out like this there's a frustrating truth the early 2000s fans are going to have to accept shadow has undergone something of a soft reboot all of these characters have there's a reason he went from sounding like this if the world chooses to become my enemy i will fight like i always have to this i see no villains just some fools whose only ability is wasting time nothing against the voice actor here but there's an obvious direction sega is trying to take this character and i hate to tell you guys i kind of understand why like i said if you did not know any better you can make certain assumptions about shadow's personality from his design and as a kid's property i'd get why you'd want to easily identify shadow and his place in the sonic cast the sonic franchise revolves around the sonic that might sound weird but if you go back to the adventure era i'd argue that those games largely revolve around shadow nowadays they rely more on sonic than ever before it's no longer about shadow's backstory and character arc it's now back to sonic and well he's got to play the part of the cool charming hero and the voice of reason and the guy making all of the plans and yes that is a bigger topic for another time wait till the end of all of this but my point is that we are reading a story with the current interpretations of these characters and unfortunately the writers of this licensed property have to work within those guidelines these are not ian flynn's characters and it's entirely up to sega whether or not they stay true to the pre-established stories or if they take shadow in a new direction i only bring this up because i see a lot of people use this issue to yell about ian flynn not understanding these characters when we have seen him write shadow perfectly fine with an archie cannon yes every writer is going to have a slightly different spin on this franchise but at the end of the day it's up to sega to determine the overall direction flynn's been upfront about this and no i don't think he's lying because that probably wouldn't do well for sega if he was lying about the company giving him the paychecks but that does not excuse this book from criticism even with these guidelines in place there's definitely some weak points worth discussing you're telling me that shadow didn't jump into the situation without a game plan doesn't coordinate with the rest of team dark wasn't updated on sonic's situation and how he's keeping it in check i mean i get we get these little scenes with sonic talking with shadow and rouge and it seems like this is the first time they got the information that him running this stuff off is what's keeping it in check but it's also kind of inconsistent with the way shadow reacts to them telling him to run and i also think it's weird that tails would call the chaotix and give him the heads up but he wouldn't call team dark first rouge contacted sonic through a headset and gave him the heads up on sunset city so there's clearly been some coordination between all these different factions so why on earth would they not know about sonic's infection and how he's handling it prior to him interacting with them and the shadow gets infected by grabbing a zombot so do his gloves count as organic material why wasn't he infected when he was spinballing through him and yes i know all of this is nitpicking alright i know but if you're gonna spend so much time establishing the rules then you need to follow your own rules and i get the point of this shadow is too powerful of a character to leave unchecked so you need to take him off the board if you want to keep raising the stakes for sonic but when you're making it blatantly obvious that you're making these situations happen in service to the plot then you have a little bit of a problem with the script these are overall just tiny hiccups here and there but they add up quickly like for real rouge new shadow was infected completely and then asked sonic about shadow later on in headquarters like she didn't see him turn she told sonic to go take care of shadow did we forget all of that just so we could see this reaction from rouge it's not like he was going to save him or something so yes the issue done goof because we know that shadow is a powerful character and we know we have to get him out of the way and honestly when i first read through it i just rolled with it because i've read so many stories like this and i knew where they were going with it but i also have a problem with zombot shadow because yeah i was expecting shadow to get infected and i was expecting a zombot shadow fight and i'll give him this he was more dangerous of a zombot than the regular ones and sonic probably would have lost if it wasn't for a last minute save from silver but i don't know i kind of felt like there could have been a little bit more done in terms of making shadow a particularly dangerous type of zombot like yes we are constantly worried about sonic turning into a zombot but this book is very clearly keeping most of the focus from sonic's perspective and even without rocket boots this would have been a great chance to show how dangerous things could get if sonic were to turn they just escaped sunset city which is fine they didn't actually win that battle but i kind of feel like shadow should be treated like a next level type of threat this is the zombie apocalypse of the sonic universe the story and the threat itself shouldn't revolve entirely around shadow i'm not saying that but shadow should be something that sonic's crew constantly have to worry about like they either need to constantly stay on the move because he just covers ground way too quickly or they are forced into a situation where they have to contain him because shadow is spreading the virus as quickly as an entire town of zombots would all on his own and i'm sure scheduling was tight again the focus is not on shadow it's on the zombot arc but i don't know reading through these last two issues i kind of felt like the pacing was a little bit off and we might have spent a little bit too much time reconnecting with all the characters and what they were doing when we could have done that in these next upcoming issues the storyline does drag quite a bit and there are definitely some weak spots in these shadowcentric stories but if i gotta be honest with you guys i overall did not have much of a problem with this whatsoever i've become somewhat used to this interpretation of shadow and it's not like he's just gonna be a zombot forever and honestly i don't even think he's gonna be this cranky forever also this probably doesn't bother me a whole lot because this is name of the worst we've seen of the character i am shadow android the ultimate battle life form created by eggman you may have created me doctor but i will now lead this empire and androids will rule this is who i am what it sucks when one of your favorite characters is being reinterpreted in a way that doesn't work for you especially when they do soft reboots yet still expect you to keep everything that happened before as canon but that's kind of what happens with long-running franchises i'm not saying you just have to grin and bear it i think it's important to express your frustrations and your criticisms but i also think it's important where you're expressing them too ian flynn is more than aware that you were not happy with the way shadow was interpreted and again i keep telling you guys take a listen to the bumblecast because he has gone on record multiple times saying that he's not too happy with what he's supposed to do with shadow that doesn't excuse these scripts if you don't like him you don't like him and that is fine i know there are some plans that have shadow take off his containment rings and just go nuts like he did with all the methodist copies in sonico6 but yeah ultimately that didn't happen i've been mulling over this particular topic for quite a while there's a reason why i did the super shadow video when i did just to kind of point out to you guys that i'd like to think i understand what makes this character so special to everybody just so when i finally covered this i won't sound completely off-base when i told you i wasn't bothered that much by this story no i'm not the biggest fan of this interpretation of shadow but at the same time i also don't want him to be quite as much of a hero as he was in the adventure era as well i kinda like a shadow who is a proper rival to sonic i kinda like a little vegeta in that mix cause i kinda like vegeta i'm sorry but i think there's a middle ground we have not yet struck with this character and despite all the bashing everyone's done with sonic forces i think it's important to look at how shadow was interpreted in that game again not quite as well as he was back in the adventure era but i definitely think we're moving closer to something that everyone can be happy with sega tends to overcorrect when it comes to their games and i'm hoping that the little more shadow we're seeing from forces and from the comics and from the reaction to how shadow handled this situation because yes they do address it i think all of this is pointing towards the signs that hopefully sooner rather than later we're going to have a shadow that can be sonic's dark rival and at the same time can be his own person one that we're compelled to follow and enjoy doesn't feel like an idiot when he's in the middle of a situation like this i think my actual issue with all of this is just how sonic is interpreted in the more modern age like i said he's got to be the hero on every level for everybody it really feels like this entire world revolves around him as opposed to him existing in this larger grander world which i kind of miss about the archie series i kind of miss sonic being a little bit of a dick or being a little flippant or rushing too quickly into a situation i kind of wanted a story that i thought i would get when i saw the cover of this comic book where we see team dark trying to get survivors away from zombots and shadow looks pissed because sonic doesn't look like he's taking the situation seriously i mean there's like a hundred different ways you could have shadow get infected that would have been fine for people i don't even think he needed to take off his rings maybe he's really honestly pissed with sonic because technically his inaction helped enable the situation i think that is a great way to have these two characters come at odds with each other and i would have liked to see more of that play out i would love to see that expanded upon and when shadow finally turns i don't know you could have had sonic accidentally bump into him or shadow going out of his way to stop sonic from going fully converted because he knows how dangerous sonic would be as a zombot i don't know i'm just spitting off the top of my head i'm not sitting in front of this and i'm just using hindsight but my point is there was a lot of potential story worth telling between these two characters and a lot of decent excuses to have them be at odds with each other without it sacrificing the core ideals of shadow that we know so far but again i haven't seen sega's notes i have no idea what's been said to ian about the direction of the character and ultimately at the end of the day shadow is not the most important character in this storyline and he has whether you like it or not stayed pretty consistent for his characterization in the idw canon yes it's spun off from the main core game cannon but this is still its own story and shadow's been a little bit crankier for this past decade whether you like it or not so while i'm not the happiest i could be with it and while i do think there could have been better ways to get to the end goal they were going for i'm still overall okay with it it was still a fun crazy chaotic mess and this is where the book really feels like things are about to get really bad because we're starting to see sonic get tired and worried and stressed and i think that would make a bigger impact if he was a lot more flippant and foolish prior to this point like trying to hold back his own guilt for the situation by being brash and arrogant and all this other stuff we've known sonic to be in the past i don't know i'm sure ian flynn has his own hundreds of different ways he would have liked to do this particular story but again when you're writing a licensed property you don't have as many options as you would like it's a bigger challenge than people give it credit for critique this issue make of it what you will and yes if there are ways the writers could have improved even within their own given guidelines then yeah i don't think it's too much to ask them to step the game up just understand there are guidelines in place but yeah that's just gonna about wrap up all my thoughts about this notorious moment in idw sonic history i get why it's there and i hope i picked it apart well enough that i can validate those frustrations and explain them away but at the same time like i said at the start when i first read through this i didn't even blink an eye i thought shadow kind of went out like a but i also kind of expected him to go out so he got some cool hits in he did some cool extra stuff as a zombot i would have liked more and i would have liked some stuff done a little bit differently but at the same time the overall pressing issue of the zombot threat is far more interesting to me and i'm sure that this is just going to be a weak point in the history of shadow the hedgehog this character isn't going anywhere and whether or not you like a current interpretation of him just remember that's not always going to be the case express your frustrations express your criticisms help the writers and the ip holders and everybody else guide these characters in a way that facilitates the fan base because there's a reason you fell in love with these characters and honestly if those reasons shine through there's no reason they can't build that fan base but at the same time don't let it ruin your day don't let this silly moment ruin an entire storyline or comic series for you if this was literally all it took to make you swear off idw sonic well i'm sorry you're missing out on a lot of great stories here and while it might not be true to what games have interpreted shadow like literally almost 20 years ago it still works well enough within the kingdom provided by the comic books so far so yeah not my favorite thing in the world but ain't gonna ruin my day and uh yeah i'm sick and tired of talking about this so we're gonna wrap it up and i will catch you next time on sonic speed reading 2 sonic warriors [Music]

Channel: Game Apologist

Views: 148,381

Rating: 4.9464736 out of 5

Keywords: shadow, metal shadow, metal virus, idw shadow, sonic speed reading, idw sonic, sonig the hedgehog, shadow the hedgehog, rouge the bat, omega, sunset city, zombot shadow, zombots, zombie robot, sonic zombie apocalypse, shadow controversy, game apologist, ian flynn, issue 19, issue 20, archie sonic, sonic adventure 2, sonic heroes, sonic 06, vegeta shadow, silver the hedgehog, tails, chaotix, amy rose, sonic forces, cowards run i win, sega, espio, vector, charmy, gaming, comics

Id: yHev3W_e9c0

Length: 29min 15sec (1755 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Sonicgalinfo]

In other words they know shadow is too powerful so they dumb him down so the stakes will be high for our hero's, whatever I guess

[u/yuzumelodious]

One could argue Shadow not having as big of role as he had in Adventure 2, 06, etc is more acceptable since his arc had been full filled.

However, I'm still not a fan how he ended up getting infected. I'll leave it at if you're very familiar with the criticisms regarding IDW Shadow.

[u/RealCobaltCanine]

That's an excuse for people who are not willing to accept that the fan base grows and evolves to be more geared towards other characters. Unfortunately, sega listens to that stuff

[u/GlitterbumDogbit]

Ah yes, the Vegeta treatment. Love it/s