Why Fleetway Amy is the Best Amy

hey folks for a while now i've been putting out videos looking at fleetway's sonic the comic the british sonic comic that released fortnightly in the 1990s the comics have enjoyed some renewed interest in recent years thanks to a handful of its villains gaining some notoriety on the internet i've made it my mission to try to spread some appreciation for the comics because they were a big part of my childhood and shaped my perception of sonic the hedgehog's world i'm thankful that so many of you have enjoyed my fleetway retrospective videos and today i present an extra special one i want to introduce you all to amy rose amy is a familiar character for any sonic fan you might know her from sonic cd or one of the more modern games but amy developed a unique awesome personality in the fleetway comics and i consider to be her best portrayal to date in this video i want to give a whistle stop history of amy in the fleetway comics and along the way try to highlight everything i love about fleetway amy before i start i want to thank lixus for letting me use their amy render for my thumbnail it's amazing and faithful to the original comic art if you get a chance please do check out their twitter the link is in my description for a peek at some more sonic and fleetway artwork but now there's no better place to start than the beginning amy first appeared in issue 21 of sonic the comic where she's arrested by dr robotnik's trooper robots for her association with sonic amy had been claiming to be sonic's girlfriend prompting the arrest amy is taken away to robotnik's base and roboticized but sonic and freedom fighter johnny lightfoot come to the rescue freeing her from her robotic shell and spiriting her off to the freedom fighter's own secret base much to sonic's frustration johnny proposes that amy join the freedom fighters as she's now a wanted fugitive with a target on her back sonic reluctantly agrees but reasserts that he isn't her boyfriend to which amy replies yet in amy's first appearance she's wearing that classic sonic cd outfit but there's one key difference between her appearance here and in sonic cd her spines appeared to stick upwards and that look was retained through her entire existence in the fleetway comics save for her last few appearances i've always assumed that this choice was due to fleetway staff basing her design off this piece of sonic cd artwork now in that piece i think the spines are like that because the duo were flying through the air but i'm really fond of fleetway's amy design i think her spines give her a distinct and kind of a punk rock look that the comics artists would definitely lean into in future issues it also helps to really differentiate her from sonic as well in many of her earlier appearances amy is just used as a plot device being captured by villains like metallics and the pirate captain plunder in order to be rescued by sonic amy is never presented as a complete damsel in distress though usually she's not afraid to talk back to her captors and she doesn't really beg for help in fact she manages to free herself from captain plunder's imprisonment by suggesting that she and sonic team up with plunder's pirate crew to search for the chaos emeralds also to be fair getting captured by metallics aka metal sonic is kind of expected considering it happens during fleetway's sonic cd adaption right off the bat we have to discuss amy's relationship with sonic in these early years she's just as obsessed with sonic as she is in other forms of media she claims to be sonic's girlfriend she showers him with compliments which he never repays and she gets pretty jealous when he's hanging out with other girls this is typical amy but her character did evolve past this phase as the comic went on chief writer at the time nigel kitchinger suggested that he saw amy as a bit of a comedic character an irritant and a troll whose feelings for sonic were exaggerated because they got on his nerves what's interesting is that apparently at one point a kind of love triangle storyline was proposed in which amy was in love with sonic and johnny lightfoot of the freedom fighters had a crush on amy there is a very very slight suggestion of this story getting going in the comics but it never really came to fruition and in all honesty i'm glad about that because johnny lightfoot is pretty lame after amy got over her sonic obsession there is one other person that she was potentially romantically linked with but we'll discuss that later now issue 24 marks the first appearance of amy's signature weapon the crossbow i've looked around and i don't know exactly why the writers bestowed this weapon on amy but it makes for a great fit amy uses a crossbow and occasionally a good old-fashioned archery set throughout the comics she's presented as being an extremely talented marx woman and in one issue she fires off an arrow with an enemy that turns out to be an innocent mobian she's dismayed when sonic tells her that she's missed her mark which is a lie in fact sonic stopped the arrow from hitting the innocent mobian square in the head that's how talented amy is at firing off arrows what do you think of amy as fleetways version of hawkeye i think it works sonic has speed tails has a power of flight knuckles has strength with her long range skills amy offers the team something unique i think it's a better weapon than the pico pico hammer that first appeared in sonic adventure for example it's something practical and frankly pretty badass in good hands was a significant strip from issue 41 it was amy's first solo story she got a redesign that didn't stick around for too long with her sonic cd outfit being replaced by a floral dress it also allowed for a little insight into amy's character sonic doesn't allow her to join in a rescue mission in another zone so when green hill zone is attacked by badniks amy has to plump up the courage to save the day herself when sonic gets back amy doesn't even bother to tell him what happened because let's face it the jerk that is fleetway sonic might not even believe her it's in issue 51 that amy appears in her most iconic fleetway outfit plaid in a played skirt and slightly oversized white t-shirt with a heart emblazoned on the front there's something very 90s and maybe even grunge about this look the look didn't become permanent for a while as different artists flitted between her three styles but by issue 57 the look was cemented and permanent it's quite interesting fleetway tinkered with the backstory and personality of plenty of sonic characters but rarely changed them quite as wholesale as they did with amy artist richard elson has confirmed that there was a plan to give amy a trench coat as well a kinter scully from the x-files that never came to fruition though tails did wear a trench coat for a while apparently amy was a subject to some contentious behind the scenes disputes at fleetway editor deborah tate wanted amy to be a role model for young girls to be presented as more mature and sensible than the other characters in the comic lead writer nigel kitching disagreed with this idea believing that amy shouldn't be presented as flawlessly as tate wanted the result of this disagreement was amy taking an increasingly backseat role in the comic you see in typical british comic books you have roughly four or so different stories in one comic in sonic the comic you'd usually get a few pages of the main sonic story and the rest of the issue would be filled with side stories starring tails amy etc according to the sonic the comic wiki the phasing out of amy from the main sonic strip started with issue 58 after this dispute this doesn't seem entirely right to me because after issue 78 amy played an absolutely integral part of the immensely popular first phase of the supersonic story arc being the target of evil supersonic's wrath tracking down sonic after his supersonic transformation wore off and ultimately helping to defeat super sonic for the first time this felt like one of amy's best moments in the comic as she showed courage tenacity and quick thinking following the supersonic story sonic spent an extended period in the special zone away from mobius and it was during this period that amy stepped up and filled sonic's shoes as the de facto leader of the freedom fighters it was at this point that other writers who agreed with deborah tate's views on amy helped to shape her into a commendable leader someone who was level-headed and very patient away from sonic amy's on-again off-again crush on him was downplayed and after a short while completely disappeared as leader of the freedom fighters amy was forced to flex her authority on occasion dealing with hot-headed personalities like knuckles and the cybernetic freedom fighters short fused the cyber nick amy was never afraid to clash with other big personalities and in one particularly tense encounter had to chastise short fuse after he rushed into battle against one of the freedom fighters enemies endangering them all she was presented as a completely credible leader in fact she might even have been a better leader than sonic sonic inspired the freedom fighters but he could be a little bit toxic at times issue 100 of the comic culminated with sonic returning from the special zone to planet mobius and defeating dr robotnik effectively ushering him back in as leader of the freedom fighters amy's short but memorable tenure as the squad's leader was over but she'd really earned her stripes and become a completely credible hero in her own right it felt like after issue 100 amy and techno the canary's friendship began to blossom and that's why i call this period the amy and techno era this is when amy's absence from the main sonic strip became noticeable for the most part after this point amy's adventures would take place in her own strip alongside techno techno was a super intelligent former engineer of dr robotnik's who was freed from being roboticized by short fuse and joined the freedom fighters immediately after as an engineer techno also brought something different to the table and would increasingly find herself on little adventures with amy she felt more like an equal rather than a sidekick to amy the two share a level-headed composure and that made the amy and techno strips feel like more of a calm sober affair than the main sonic strips most of amy and techno's adventures were fairly low-key affairs with little threat to the fate of mobius in this era the girls met a cast of characters that really fleshed out the world of fleetway sonic one notable recurring character was norris whimple president of the badnik spotters club he enjoyed the dangerous hobby of spotting different badniks and noting down their serial numbers amy and techno found themselves saving norris from trouble quite a lot like the time he dressed up as sonic to attract badniks and nearly got himself kidnapped another is fabian vane a pop star who hired the girls as protection from his fanatical fans or so they think those fanatical fans were in fact people who vane owed money to fabian's star fades substantially when the mobius entertainment world found itself a new pop star to fawn over peter android any uk folks know who this guy is based on answers in the description fabian would become a substantial recurring character always teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and irrelevance but always being lent a friendly helping hand by amy and techno to get his life together again my favorite of these amy and techno stories was this one where a film director cast them in an action movie opposite this pair of bodybuilders on set the animatronics went a little crazy and had to be stopped by the girls during all of this the bodybuilders were more than useless and couldn't help but swoon over the girls after being saved the most substantial of these amy stories was the one in issue 127 which retcons amy's fleetway origins in this story robotnik constructs a machine designed to imbue him with the same powers as sonic elsewhere amy tries to rally a group of mobians to resist robotnik she looks a lot more like a normal hedgehog here with brown spines and has a cool fantastic four t-shirt no one wants to help amy so she heads off to chemical plant zone alone to sabotage robotnik she blows up his newly built machine and the ensuing explosion tints her spines pink she promptly makes her escape and is celebrated as a hero this origin story feels like it kind of clashes with her first fleetway appearance quite a lot but hey at least they made an attempt to explain her pink fur now talking of the fantastic four t-shirt it was during this period that amy's fashion would get kicked up a notch too almost every issue amy would be found rocking a new outfit or a different t-shirt it was always fun seeing what the artist would clad amy in fortnight after fortnight from stylish jumpers jeans and hiking gear to all manner of t-shirts with love hearts crosses and other symbols on them issue 134 kicked off the ring of eternity saga amy's longest and most substantial solo storyline the arc starts off with amy and techno trekking through snowcap mountain zone in search of a great source of power they find the ring of eternity a powerful sentient portal who tasks them with lending their assistance to planets in need across the universe what followed was a 20-issue story in which amy and techno were continually transported from planet to planet time zone to time zone discovering new civilizations and helping them to solve their problems in their intergalactic quest they ended up interacting with plenty of alien civilizations traveled to mobius thousands of years in the future and even visited earth a couple of times my favorite of these ring of eternity stories is the one in which amy and techno arrive in ancient greece to help hercules defeat the minotaur hercules is a horrible slob the girls also visit a world where they're incredibly tiny it's a world seemingly inhabited by image comics savage dragon the ring of eternity story ended with issues 154-156 amy and techno find themselves transported to a black and white world a film noir style world inhabited by old school gangsters much to their surprise they find a fellow mobian there max gamble a long time adversary of the freedom fighters who has become this world's mr big it turns out that max gamble a felon on the run from the law on mobius was hiding out in snow-capped mountain zone when he saw the girls jump through the ring for the first time he followed them but ended up on this gangster world amy figures that gamble couldn't have ended up in a better place it's almost too perfect to fit for him she comes to the conclusion that gamble didn't end up in a gangster-infested world coincidentally this was a world in which traveller's wishes were granted while gamble subconsciously wished for a gang to boss around amy wishes for a troop of superheroes to bring about some justice with the illusory gangster world vanquished amy and techno take max back through the portal to mobius when they return they immediately find an angry gang wanting to throw good old fabian vane through the portal vayne doesn't realise how dangerous this prospect is so amy tries to intervene causing a scuffle that results in the ring of eternity breaking techno amy and max managed to rebuild it but it happily declares their intergalactic quest to be over it appears that the ring of eternity arc was not favorably received based on comments online with detractors suggesting the storyline was too meandering that's a shame the main sonic strip at the time was in the midst of a very long and very epic single story thread so amy's bizarre non-sequitur adventures across the multiverse served as a nice pallet cleanser for me while i did miss seeing amy interact with the other freedom fighters it was fun to see her relationship with techno blossom forget sonic and amy a long debate has raged in the fleetway community as to whether amy and techno were in a romantic relationship or just friends with the ring of eternity shenanigans over and with debra tate long gone as editor amy was finally reintroduced to the main sonic strip in issue 160. at this point in the comic sonic was stuck on a submolecular world called shanazar amy used the ring of eternity one final time to locate sonic and lend him a hand fighting off some of the weird medieval inhabitants of shanazar amy has this t-shirt that reads weird something i'm not sure if this is a reference to anything anyone know for a few issues amy was sonic's sole companion on shanazar until dr robotnik his assistant grimer and knack the weasel merged shanazar and mobius together effectively transporting sonic and amy back to a slightly altered version of mobius the merge results in several dimensional tears opening up around mobius so the next string of comics sees amy and sonic diving into these tears to explore other dimensions it might seem a little cheap that the same dimension hopping story formula at the heart of the ring of eternity saga was effectively redone again and yeah it was to be honest there was a couple of fun stories here and there though this leads us to fleetway's last storyline an adaption of sonic adventure that kicked off in february of 2000. a few characters including sonic and robotnik got slight redesigns to bring them in line with their sonic adventure appearance amy did too getting that bob hairstyle she has as well as brown eyes but no red dress or pico pico hammer appeared beyond the slight style change though there's not a huge amount more to say the comics stopped printing original stories after the sonic adventure arc was done so obviously that also closes the door on amy's fleetway appearances i know fleetway supersonic is popular and for good reason but i adore what fleetway did with amy they took a character that honestly didn't have much going for her outside of being a bit of a damsel in distress and gave her a unique personality look and skill set that i honestly think trumps the way amy has been presented in the games amy with a crossbow a love heart t-shirt and spiky spines is my ideal amy rose what do you think if you're a fleetway veteran let me know if you share my enthusiasm for fleetway amy if you've never read the comics let me know what you think of fleetway amy compared to her video game counterpart thanks for watching and hopefully i'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Johnny Vector

Views: 208,098

Keywords: fleetway amy, fleetway amy rose, fleetway x amy, fleetway vs amy, fleetway sonic vs amy, tekno, tekno the canary, tekno the canary and amy, tekno the canary and amy rose, fleetway sonic, fleetway comic, sonic the comic, sonic the comic fleetway, amy rose, amy, amy sonic, amy rose sonic, amy rose media, amy rose fn, amy rose best moments, amy rose best character, amy rose best friend, sonic amy kiss comic, sonic cd amy, captain plunder, sonic, sonic the hedgehog

Id: qLPBd529OUY

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 19 2022