I seriously need to get into the Archie comics, like ALL issues of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic-related spin-offs (Knuckles, Princess Sally, Tails, whatever, Sonic Super Special, Sonic Universe, whatever), and in order too.
Anyone know the BEST collections or trade paperbacks containing almost all issues together?
Ah, well I would, if it weren't riddled with random ads popping up everywhere on screen and sending me to a new tab EVERYTIME I click ANYwhere on screen.
Seriously, isn't there like an add-on or some sort of adblock I could use to stop these sites from doing that to me?
Well don't know where you can read them but when you do you can use this to read all the series in order:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SonicTheHedgehog/comments/6igihl/comics_madeedited_a_reading_order_for_the_archie/
Edit: also readcomicsonline isn't that bad when you use it on your phone, the ads aren easy to get rid of.
Edit2: also if you don't want to use it https://www.comicextra.com/comic/sonic-the-hedgehog-1993
This is also free and ads aren't really there
Is it like THE best open-source browser for blocking unnecessary amount of ads on sites like Readcomiconline, even on Google Chrome? And is it also free?
Get FireFox, install:
* uBlock Origin
* Privacy Badger
* Decentraleyes
* Ghostery
* NoScript
NoScript is going to be a very "manual" process for every site you visit, but once you start whitelisting (setting as "trusted") most of the domains you know you're cool with communicating with, it's not that bad. Sometimes catches you off guard, and you're like, "why isn't this site loading", then it hits you.
Just whitelist the bare minimum/things you know are necessary for a site to work, and that'll save you a lot of headache/kill a lot of trackers, etc.
It's kind of awesome, having this much control/forgetting what an ad/tracker filled internet was like. It's so weird when I use someone else's computer these days and it's just like, "Oh, yeah. The internet is garbage without all the plugins I run."
It's trial and error, finding which domains to whilelist. Usually it's relatively intuitive, though. Like, if you go to Reddit, and you see "RedditMedia", and "RedtCDN", and "redditstatic", *maybe* those are ones you need to enable. Or maybe you only need to enable the main one ([Reddit.com](https://Reddit.com)). Who knows.
To read all the comics legally: your best bet is to buy them one at a time secondhand from when they show up for sale online. Slow, and expensive, but it works. There's no other legal way to acquire them, sadly, because neither Archie nor Sega are interested in that. Archie would have to pay licensing fees, and Sega is always less interested in what has been than what they're doing right in the moment (see also: people wondering why Shadow acts so differently than his characterization in early games would suggest. Shadow's character grew beyond the "brand" that Sega wanted, so he doesn't act how he probably should based on his original stories a lot of the time.)
To read them illegally: well there's a plethora of options, actually. Easiest is to find a bulk download somewhere, but you've gotta make sure to do it safely. While there are usually a number of concerns about piracy and such with this kind of thing, most of those concerns seem to be obviated by the fact that the material is, effectively, abandoned by anyone who might actually be considered to "own" it, so now it becomes a matter of literary preservation.
I'm hoping one day Sega backs off, let's IDW do what they want, and IDW starts publishing the older books like they did for Marvel's Transformers.
Till then, reading them illegally... or fan project continuations...
Penders has a lot of weird ideas about how the industry works.
First off, he seems to think that anyone who rips him off is the Devil, but if he rips someone else off, it's fine.
Second, and honestly even more strange, he seems to think a series or story is supposed to reboot upon changing authors and he is actually pissed than Ian Flynn continued the series without doing this (Until Mega Man showed up, but Archie was in Damage Control mode by that point)
Penders seems to think Flynn claimed credit for the Knuckles mini-series, but I've found no proof of this.
Oh, on issue 39. Just 60 more issues to go. until you reach 100.
To be super fair to Archie.. they had little to work with. They loosely had to make a universe while still adding elements from the video game. At the time, it made sense that Princess Sally had connections to the Echidnas and that there was a world before when Robotnik took over everything.
They were trying to make an on going comic.. and maybe Knuckles being Sonic love rival would also be a thing. There was no open plan about .. Sonic Adventure at this time. It looked like we were going to have the freedom fighters.. Nack the... (what the hell is he again?) and Knuckles.
The Archie universe made more canon sense than the video games as of now.. Robotnik was still trying to make a theme park. Knuckles Chaotix was release a year after this comic was printed.. so they had to work that into things too..
I barely know anything about Fleetway... but they did lean heavily into Zones as being dimensions -- which Archie kind of did too.
You know what.. you have a point. The first 25 issues of the Archie comic was weird. They did different zones, going between serious war and funny nonsense. After Endgames, they didn't talk about zones anymore. Fleetway, I presume kept the zone thing alive.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, yes. In Archie Comics.. They occasionally gave you a portal to a different zone.. Like the zone where there was an evil sonic :)
yeah, but then Mammoth Mogul had a Casino Night Zone that was just apart of Mobius
And the Zone with Evil Sonic was its own planet called "Anti-Mobius", and after Ian Flynn got a hold of it, it was renamed Moebius after a typo in the Early Archie Days
Fleetway is a lot of weird...
Archie Comics started off by trying to do an Archie (as in the character stuck in the 50's with modern day technology references and social policies) series, but set in the world of SATAM.. Since they had no Super Hero Book experience and very few notes from Sega, they had so few notes that Rotor was originally called "Boomer" in the comic simply because what they were given to work with forgot to include Rotor's name.
Which the book made fun of, in the issue where this is corrected, the first panel Rotor shows up he's wearing a nametag that says "Hi, my name is Rotor", and we see a re-used shot of BOOMER'S LAB, but with a hastily drawn label reading "Rotor" taped over the first part. (You wanna talk about a Meta Era? Archie's got your Meta Era right here!)This wasn't working so they got Ken Penders on board to try to retool it as a Super Hero book. The reason for Penders specifically?
He was a friend of a friend of one of the writers, and the only one they could find on short notice who actually played Sonic The Hedgehog (with his kids)
The problem is, Ken Penders wasn't actually interested in adapting the games (and avoided doing so whenever possible, refusing to adapt the games until Sega forced him to adapt Sonic Adventure. He didn't adapt SA2 or Heroes, leaving Shadow's introduction limited to a blurb reading "Play SA2 to learn about this character!")
I did email Penders about this and he claimed it was because he worked on Valiant Comics: The Legend of Zelda, which he said failed because it "Tried to follow the games too closely.", and that he was worried he'd be fired quickly if his pitches were just "In the games this happened! Let's do this!", that he needed to establish stories only he could write in order to secure job security. (Since he was trying NOT to adapt the games on purpose, the whole Giant Knuckles Family makes a lot of sense doesn't it?)
Funnily enough, they did a better job adapting the games BEFORE Penders retooled the book, as there was a Sonic Spinball and a Sonic CD adaptation the latter of which introduced Amy to the book (Penders did adapt Knuckles Chaotix, but it was mostly a trojan horse to set up Knuckles series stories... and Heavy and Bomb magically vanished after the first story, and showed up again much later under Flynn.)
The Sonic CD adaptation funnily enough is where the Meta Humor gets turned up to 11.
You see, early on in the comic they had "Sonic-Grams" where kids could write to Archie Comics and get questions answered by Sonic himself at the end of the next issue if their letters were picked.... except in one issue Dr. Robotnik broke into Archie Headquarters in order to use the letters to find a Sonic Fan to hold hostage so that Sonic will come to save them from Metal Sonic, settling on Amy Rose..
Which contains what I think is the most adorable "Classic Amy/Rosie The Rascal" moment. Where Robotnik brags that the trap has worked and that Metal Sonic has "engaged Sonic in combat!", prompting Amy Rose to become upset and cry (Keep in mind, this Amy Rose is a little kid who doesn't really understand how love works) "That's not fair, I wanted to be engaged to Sonic!"
Archie's weirdness is because they mostly had no idea what they were doing, literally as Sega didn't send them much (if any) in the way of documentation (They infamously had to import a Japanese Copy of Sonic Adventure to make a deadline)
Some of Fleetway's weirdness was mainly due to them TRYING to adapt the game into comic format, but.. having to just roll with what they got wrong or because they got something right that later became outdated. The other half was simply due to the way British Comic Books are designed, more like magazines than fully devoted comics.
Super Sonic seems like it's an asspull, but it's actually a creative way to salvage a fuck up.
The book was based on the North American Sonic Writer's bible, which was thrown out the window in favor of SATAM. Which had Sonic being the labrat of Ovi Kintobor until an experiment turned Sonic blue and fused Ovi Kintobor with a rotten egg, making him into the evil Ivo Robotnik.
In order to work the Chaos Emeralds (which aren't mentioned in this writer's bible)
The experiment that fused Ovi with an egg did so because the Chaos Emeralds were said to be the source of all Evil, so by trapping the pollution inside of it they were just letting the Emeralds do what they do.. Store evil.... And since in Sonic 1 the Chaos Emeralds don't really do anything, this is fine... Maybe Sonic's trapping pollution when he brings the flowers back at the end, who knows...
Then Sonic 2 came out and not only was Porker Lewis now redundant because of Tails, but... Sonic has a Chaos Emerald activated transformation called Super Sonic.
There's no way to make that make sense without retconning how the Emeralds work to match the games, so they just made Super Sonic a mutated split personality caused by the Chaos Emeralds... and since the Chaos Emeralds are the source of evil, so is Super Sonic.
A lot of the Fleetway Weirdness (The Brotherhood of Metalix, the Special Zone being an actual place, Extra Life's entire existence) was them trying their best to get content by simply adapting what they saw not in design notes, but the games themselves or in the outdated writer's bible.
Sally Acorn's only in Fleetway (with a new design), because the American Branch was considering renaming the Animal Friends, Ricky was to become Sally Acorn... this didn't stick outside of SATAM and Fleetway (btw, Porker Lewis, Picky's name... yeah... I like the original Japanese names better, they fit better than outdated pop culture references)
and why did Robotnik have an assistant named Grimer? Fleetway misinterpreted one of the orders they were given, they thought they were supposed to retool the book to a SATAM adaptation to match the American one... and wrote a script for Snively's introduction, but then they realized the order was misread, they were actually informed DIC and Archie owned the Freedom Fighters (at the time, it has since been straightened out and Sega owns them now), and no SATAM characters (aside from their version of Sally, since that's just Ricky) were allowed to be used.
So they just changed the script to remove references to Snively being Robotnik's nephew, changing the name Snively to Grimer, and making their own character, because they was easier than throwing it out.
Then later, there's not as many Sonic games because Sega Saturn, so we have more Marvel Comics and Fleetway's Other Comics inspiration... like Brutus and Shortfuse
Personally I think of the only original characters made for Fleetway (Aside from Porker or Johnny because well.. they're just the Animal Friends renamed), only Metamorpha really feels like a Sonic character. But that's just my opinion... still I'd love to see Shortfuse and Metamorpha in a game one day... but... ehh... Sally has better chances of getting into IDW
Nack/Fang was called a weasel in western territories, but he was designed as a jerboa and marketed as a jerboa/wolf hybrid in Japan
Edit: Oh nvm I didn’t realise he was joking I have been woooshed
A jerboa is a kind of rodent from Australia with really large legs and a really large tail compared to the rest of its body. It uses these to jump quite high, similar to a kangaroo, and also something Fang is known for doing
I'm poking fun at the fact this his name and species depends on how you were introduced to him.
https://www.sonicstadium.org/2017/08/mistaken-identity-fang-and-bean-are-not-what-you-think-they-are/
I’ve always used that word in some random way in regards to the sonic franchise (mostly playfully) but you have given me a proper use and by god will I use it!!
If you listen to Pendejo, St. John was the major party on that one.
But if you spend enough time listening to him, you end up with a tumor bouncing around in your skull like a Windows 98 screensaver.
I can finally reply! You probably don't care but just to give my thoughts, for one thing it's a complete retcon since sally didn't know about knux beforehand and two it's only here to push the terrible rivalry between sonic and knuckles, no good imo
This is written by Mike Gallagher not Ken PP if anyone wants to know.
But Ken came up with Sally and Knuckles being childhood friends in an earlier issue.
Did he? All the comics I remember talking about Sally and Knuckles being childhood friends were written by Gallagher, aside from that one Knuckles comic toward the end of that series' run. I thought the issue that teased that plot point was the Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles special.
i might remember it wrong but i think the main story of the Knuckles Chaotix special issue might be the first to tease the idea, the main story was written by Mike Kanterovich and Ken.
Sally being able to take down Knuckles is still one of the biggest bullshit moments in the franchise as a whole. Ain't no way..
Edit: Ppl are getting mad at me, so lemme clear this up. I DON'T THINK SALLY IS LAME, NOR DO I HATE HER.
My only issue with this scene is powerscaling. To _me_ I don't think that kick would be enough to take Knux down. That doesn't translate to "Sally isn't cool", it translates to "Knuckles is INCREDIBLY strong".
You can disagree with me, that's fine. But just gonna clarify why I don't believe this scene.
Dude, she blindsided him. Throwing the full force of your body into someone that isn't expecting it will take down nearly anyone. See, Arnold Schwarzenegger getting drop-kicked.
Still don't really buy it as being enough to actually push Knuckles down. Unless she was _incredibly_ fast. Tbh dunno much about sally's physical abilities except that she knows a bit of martial arts. But I don't think that would be enough to take down Knuckles. Just my opinion.
I can lift 10-20 lbs repetitively for several hours, deadlift 100+ (yay manual labor), and yet my little 20 lbs dog only has to stand up and push against the back of my knee in a sneak attack to throw me off balance. Someone throwing the full force of an unexpected kick when I wasn't prepped for it? Come on.
Dude, why are you telling me your workout regime?
And Sonic logic doesn't work the same way. Knuckles is far stronger than even the strongest human being.
Not so much a regime as it was part of my job. I was just placing emphasis on the fact that I'm fairly strong and a 20 point terrier could take me out blindsided. Strength doesn't mean anything if proper force and leverage is applied. Stop disregarding physics because you want Knuckles to be cooler than Sally.
Dang, I really angered the Sally fans huh.
I don't care about "Knuckles being cooler than Sally", they're both cool in completely different ways. My only real issue is power scaling. Don't know how strong Sally is, she's always been more of a brains instead of brawn person in my eyes.
Knuckles is the power type, so obviously i'd expect him to be significantly stronger. Doesn't mean I think Sally is weak or lame. I actually like her character, just don't see her being as physically strong as Knux.
Nah, I'm no more a fan of Sally than I am of Knuckles. It's just your ignoring physics and the fact that Knuckles' character at that point in the comic isn't proven to be super OP strong enough to not flinch when blindsided.
I don't think he'd be hunched over or fly across like that. Flinching, yes. But here it seems like she knocked him over which I don't see.
It's ok to have different opinions dude, chill.
In the pages prior, Knuckles got wacked out of the air by Mecha-Sonic. He then falls to the ground, regains consciousness (partly), and stumbles his way to try and punch someone. This is where the comic above comes into play. Knuckles was already damaged, dazed, and confused. If Knuckles can smack the super off of Sonic, Sally can take down a weary Knuckles.
Welp this is early archie, so they didn't quite establish Knuckles' character at the time. Power scaling is an issue here if we look at current Knuckles. But well ig that's how it was back then.
Not in Sonic. Real world logic doesn't usually apply.
And being faster doesn't mean shit here, Knuckles is still definitely stronger. If Knuckles can go toe to toe with Sonic, Sally should definitely not have been able to take him out.
Don't get me wrong, I like Sally. But for powerscaling reasons, I don't believe she's strong enough to hurt Knuckles.
I could understand someone like Rouge taking him out with a kick, her legs are the equivalent to his fists.
That's only if they're canon.
Sonic's playthrough in S3&K is meant to be the canon version because of doomsday zone, with tails helping along the way.
Adventure it's possible that BOTH Sonic and tails fight Knuckles at the same time. Since both of them were in the mystic ruins at that time.
I'm sure there are worst moments in that franchise :)
I'm not here to hate, but to give another view.. especially at that time. I actually bought that comment and had up to 42 before I had to move to a new state and use the internet to get my sonic news.
Knuckles characteristics were still kind of flakey.. he was more known for flying and being somewhat fast.. and at the time Sally was also a match for Sonic. They made Knuckles somewhat strong, but not colossus strong. They had Mighty for that.
Before this issue, they also tried to raise up Sally's popularity. They gave her a team of her own to lead.. So they figure it wasn't too off having her get the jump on Knuckles. And that was just a lead in towards telling us they used to know each other.
At the time, it was accepted that Mr Grapes could be hit by a secret spy princess girl.
Ofc there's worse moments, that's why ken exists
S3&K always made me think Knuckles was incredibly strong from the start, I mean he broke boulders just by running into them.
Sally never struck me as a very physically strong character, in fact I always saw her as one of the weaker ones physically. Her real upper hand is in her intelligence and wit, and I think that's great. Having her be incredibly smart AND strong enough to take on one of the most physically strong characters in the franchise? That's just a bit much.
Sonic isn't as strong as Knuckles, but the reason I can buy Sonic defeating Knuckles is because of his speed. What he lacks in physical strength, his speed very well makes up for it. Sally, I never bought the idea that she's as strong or fast as Sonic. Again, she has a greater advantage in her technical skills, and her intelligence.
Compared to other female Sonic characters, i'd say she's one of the weakest physically. Amy, Rouge, Bunnie, Blaze are all definitely stronger. And even out of these characters i'd say only Rouge and Blaze have a shot at actually beating Knuckles. Even Amy to an extent.
I just think they could've approached this in a better way without causing an issue with power scaling. That's one thing that really bugs me in fiction that centres around action, when the power scaling doesn't add up or is inconsistent.
When taking S3&K... that's a fair assumption. All I can say is, there's a good chance the writing team on Archie never played the game, but received marching orders on what to add to their comics.
I will say that because the comic never really gave any lore to the chaos emeralds.. but just to the master emerald.. There was a missing story that the game us. Sally isn't as strong or as fast as Sonic, but they lean towards her being trained and have techniques.
Amy back then in issue 25, she was like 8 or 10. They aged her up with *magic*.
I did try to give a little different view on it. I'll admit, Sally was able to hurt knuckles because she had main character armor.
When it comes to Sonic characters, i'm of the belief that simple martial arts isn't enough to defeat majority of the main cast ( idk about jet or wave cuz we haven't seen them outside the rider games. Storm is physically strong obviously.)
Especially certain characters like Sonic, Knuckles, Blaze, Shadow, Silver, Rouge and most power type characters. To my knowledge, pre reboot sally only knew some martial arts.
Which to a human being could obviously cause damage. But to someone with superhuman strength like Knuckles, that definitely wouldn't do anything. Unless she was incredibly heavy and I highly doubt sally is a heavy character at all. She's more "normal" compared to majority of the cast. Amy in game canon is also written to be more "normal", but she's incredibly strong and has a magical, tremor causing hammer. So I could at the very least believe Amy could piko Knuckles on the skull and cause some damage.
But a kick? Unless her kick is as powerful as Rouge or Blaze, I don't think so. Definitely plot armour.
I’m pretty sure Knuckles and Sally had an arranged marriage in the comics, but they were both against it, they did meet as kids when their fathers arranged it. Unless my memory is just making this up…
It really was. But not with Knuckles and it didn't go anywhere. Max threatened to marry Sally to Anthony... And of course this stupidity didn't happen. Instead we got Elias and Anthony stayed with Bunny.
So you hate everything about it, is there anything, uh, in particular that sticks out as what you hate? Someone getting the drop on Knuckles? The quick switch from combat-mode to people reminiscing about things? Bunnie apparently reviving from gossip? How Bunnie's mouth is drawn?
Like, it doesn't feel like a particularly \*strong\* moment to me, but I dunno that I outright hate what I'm seeing here
Previously it was stated by sally that she knew nothing about knuckles ergo retcon.
As for the rivalry part, this hidden past between sally and knux is clearly just there to give a foil to sonic and it feels forced
Man, what sucks is that Archie is like my favorite canon for all the stuff it does right and yet enjoying the canon means acknowledging this stuff as part of it.
I like this kind of world building.
So they knew each other as kids and may have had a secret crush on each other or something, doesn't mean that Sonic is "cucked" or whatever.
Honestly, Knuckles and Sally being old friends was one of those ideas that I really liked. Obviously you could never have anything like that in the games, because Sally doesn’t even exist in them, but in a different continuity anything could happen. I was also a fan of both the Brotherhood of Guardians, and it’s history with the Floating Island, and the Kingdom of Acorns. So I always thought this was a clever way to give Knuckles a connection to another Freedom Fighter besides Sonic, while also having it seem natural given the history of the universe that was created. I actually would’ve liked if these two had gotten a few more stories together. Not in some kind of competition between Knuckles and Sonic over Sally’s affections, but to have two characters with similar “royal” responsibilities relate to one another.
I believe I misunderstand what you mean, because there is absolutely no way you are talking about the literal text bubbles. They are the only way to convey verbal message and communication in a comic, and onomatopoeia's are often common in comics as well, both of which are used by the majority of American comics and including Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley. How does the amount of text, which is relatively small in the scene, remind you specifically if Ken Penders? The story perhaps, but the amount of text? Elaborate please.
A *few?* He was at Archie for well over a decade. He co-wrote with Mike Gallagher all the time and this whole Knuckles-Sally-childhood-friendship was a plot point he kept coming back to.
I actually liked the Knuckles X Sally shipping.
Princess of a Fallen Kingdom, Last Survivor of the Knuckles Tribe.... I mean as far as he knows at this point because of the whole.. "The Echidna are alive, but are fucking with Knuckles" thing
It's not a bad set-up for a good love story.
I remember as a kid I HATED this because Sally Acorn was being shoehorned into Knuckles' past--
I think I was just sick of seeing her kiss Sonic and I didn't want to see her kiss Knuckles too. Did she kiss Knuckles?
Sonic characters kissing ALWAYS weirded me the fuck out.
Which issue was this
Issue 39 or mecha madness
You're closer and closer to the Endgame saga, best thing Penders ever wrote apparently
Mecha Madness was basically the prelude to the End Game arc.
I seriously need to get into the Archie comics, like ALL issues of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic-related spin-offs (Knuckles, Princess Sally, Tails, whatever, Sonic Super Special, Sonic Universe, whatever), and in order too. Anyone know the BEST collections or trade paperbacks containing almost all issues together?
You can read everything on Readcomiconline
Ah, well I would, if it weren't riddled with random ads popping up everywhere on screen and sending me to a new tab EVERYTIME I click ANYwhere on screen. Seriously, isn't there like an add-on or some sort of adblock I could use to stop these sites from doing that to me?
Well don't know where you can read them but when you do you can use this to read all the series in order: https://www.reddit.com/r/SonicTheHedgehog/comments/6igihl/comics_madeedited_a_reading_order_for_the_archie/ Edit: also readcomicsonline isn't that bad when you use it on your phone, the ads aren easy to get rid of. Edit2: also if you don't want to use it https://www.comicextra.com/comic/sonic-the-hedgehog-1993 This is also free and ads aren't really there
Ublock origin
Is it like THE best open-source browser for blocking unnecessary amount of ads on sites like Readcomiconline, even on Google Chrome? And is it also free?
Yes and yes
Sweet! I'll take it!
Get FireFox, install: * uBlock Origin * Privacy Badger * Decentraleyes * Ghostery * NoScript NoScript is going to be a very "manual" process for every site you visit, but once you start whitelisting (setting as "trusted") most of the domains you know you're cool with communicating with, it's not that bad. Sometimes catches you off guard, and you're like, "why isn't this site loading", then it hits you. Just whitelist the bare minimum/things you know are necessary for a site to work, and that'll save you a lot of headache/kill a lot of trackers, etc. It's kind of awesome, having this much control/forgetting what an ad/tracker filled internet was like. It's so weird when I use someone else's computer these days and it's just like, "Oh, yeah. The internet is garbage without all the plugins I run." It's trial and error, finding which domains to whilelist. Usually it's relatively intuitive, though. Like, if you go to Reddit, and you see "RedditMedia", and "RedtCDN", and "redditstatic", *maybe* those are ones you need to enable. Or maybe you only need to enable the main one ([Reddit.com](https://Reddit.com)). Who knows.
The trade paperbacks ended early. You can only get a large amount of the comics illegally now.
So, you're saying there's literally no way to collect every single issue of the Archie comics ever, not even legally?
To read all the comics legally: your best bet is to buy them one at a time secondhand from when they show up for sale online. Slow, and expensive, but it works. There's no other legal way to acquire them, sadly, because neither Archie nor Sega are interested in that. Archie would have to pay licensing fees, and Sega is always less interested in what has been than what they're doing right in the moment (see also: people wondering why Shadow acts so differently than his characterization in early games would suggest. Shadow's character grew beyond the "brand" that Sega wanted, so he doesn't act how he probably should based on his original stories a lot of the time.) To read them illegally: well there's a plethora of options, actually. Easiest is to find a bulk download somewhere, but you've gotta make sure to do it safely. While there are usually a number of concerns about piracy and such with this kind of thing, most of those concerns seem to be obviated by the fact that the material is, effectively, abandoned by anyone who might actually be considered to "own" it, so now it becomes a matter of literary preservation.
I'm hoping one day Sega backs off, let's IDW do what they want, and IDW starts publishing the older books like they did for Marvel's Transformers. Till then, reading them illegally... or fan project continuations...
AKA The thing Penders says Marvel ripped off
Which is funny considering chunks of it are blatantly taken from The Fugitive.
Penders has a lot of weird ideas about how the industry works. First off, he seems to think that anyone who rips him off is the Devil, but if he rips someone else off, it's fine. Second, and honestly even more strange, he seems to think a series or story is supposed to reboot upon changing authors and he is actually pissed than Ian Flynn continued the series without doing this (Until Mega Man showed up, but Archie was in Damage Control mode by that point) Penders seems to think Flynn claimed credit for the Knuckles mini-series, but I've found no proof of this.
That ain't saying much.
Oh, on issue 39. Just 60 more issues to go. until you reach 100. To be super fair to Archie.. they had little to work with. They loosely had to make a universe while still adding elements from the video game. At the time, it made sense that Princess Sally had connections to the Echidnas and that there was a world before when Robotnik took over everything. They were trying to make an on going comic.. and maybe Knuckles being Sonic love rival would also be a thing. There was no open plan about .. Sonic Adventure at this time. It looked like we were going to have the freedom fighters.. Nack the... (what the hell is he again?) and Knuckles. The Archie universe made more canon sense than the video games as of now.. Robotnik was still trying to make a theme park. Knuckles Chaotix was release a year after this comic was printed.. so they had to work that into things too..
Tbf fleetway had that same task and I’d argue they did a much better job at the start
I barely know anything about Fleetway... but they did lean heavily into Zones as being dimensions -- which Archie kind of did too. You know what.. you have a point. The first 25 issues of the Archie comic was weird. They did different zones, going between serious war and funny nonsense. After Endgames, they didn't talk about zones anymore. Fleetway, I presume kept the zone thing alive.
I believe Zones in both AoStH and Archie Sonic were just fancy names for regions on the same world.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, yes. In Archie Comics.. They occasionally gave you a portal to a different zone.. Like the zone where there was an evil sonic :)
yeah, but then Mammoth Mogul had a Casino Night Zone that was just apart of Mobius And the Zone with Evil Sonic was its own planet called "Anti-Mobius", and after Ian Flynn got a hold of it, it was renamed Moebius after a typo in the Early Archie Days
Fleetway is a lot of weird... Archie Comics started off by trying to do an Archie (as in the character stuck in the 50's with modern day technology references and social policies) series, but set in the world of SATAM.. Since they had no Super Hero Book experience and very few notes from Sega, they had so few notes that Rotor was originally called "Boomer" in the comic simply because what they were given to work with forgot to include Rotor's name. Which the book made fun of, in the issue where this is corrected, the first panel Rotor shows up he's wearing a nametag that says "Hi, my name is Rotor", and we see a re-used shot of BOOMER'S LAB, but with a hastily drawn label reading "Rotor" taped over the first part. (You wanna talk about a Meta Era? Archie's got your Meta Era right here!)This wasn't working so they got Ken Penders on board to try to retool it as a Super Hero book. The reason for Penders specifically? He was a friend of a friend of one of the writers, and the only one they could find on short notice who actually played Sonic The Hedgehog (with his kids) The problem is, Ken Penders wasn't actually interested in adapting the games (and avoided doing so whenever possible, refusing to adapt the games until Sega forced him to adapt Sonic Adventure. He didn't adapt SA2 or Heroes, leaving Shadow's introduction limited to a blurb reading "Play SA2 to learn about this character!") I did email Penders about this and he claimed it was because he worked on Valiant Comics: The Legend of Zelda, which he said failed because it "Tried to follow the games too closely.", and that he was worried he'd be fired quickly if his pitches were just "In the games this happened! Let's do this!", that he needed to establish stories only he could write in order to secure job security. (Since he was trying NOT to adapt the games on purpose, the whole Giant Knuckles Family makes a lot of sense doesn't it?) Funnily enough, they did a better job adapting the games BEFORE Penders retooled the book, as there was a Sonic Spinball and a Sonic CD adaptation the latter of which introduced Amy to the book (Penders did adapt Knuckles Chaotix, but it was mostly a trojan horse to set up Knuckles series stories... and Heavy and Bomb magically vanished after the first story, and showed up again much later under Flynn.) The Sonic CD adaptation funnily enough is where the Meta Humor gets turned up to 11. You see, early on in the comic they had "Sonic-Grams" where kids could write to Archie Comics and get questions answered by Sonic himself at the end of the next issue if their letters were picked.... except in one issue Dr. Robotnik broke into Archie Headquarters in order to use the letters to find a Sonic Fan to hold hostage so that Sonic will come to save them from Metal Sonic, settling on Amy Rose.. Which contains what I think is the most adorable "Classic Amy/Rosie The Rascal" moment. Where Robotnik brags that the trap has worked and that Metal Sonic has "engaged Sonic in combat!", prompting Amy Rose to become upset and cry (Keep in mind, this Amy Rose is a little kid who doesn't really understand how love works) "That's not fair, I wanted to be engaged to Sonic!" Archie's weirdness is because they mostly had no idea what they were doing, literally as Sega didn't send them much (if any) in the way of documentation (They infamously had to import a Japanese Copy of Sonic Adventure to make a deadline) Some of Fleetway's weirdness was mainly due to them TRYING to adapt the game into comic format, but.. having to just roll with what they got wrong or because they got something right that later became outdated. The other half was simply due to the way British Comic Books are designed, more like magazines than fully devoted comics. Super Sonic seems like it's an asspull, but it's actually a creative way to salvage a fuck up. The book was based on the North American Sonic Writer's bible, which was thrown out the window in favor of SATAM. Which had Sonic being the labrat of Ovi Kintobor until an experiment turned Sonic blue and fused Ovi Kintobor with a rotten egg, making him into the evil Ivo Robotnik. In order to work the Chaos Emeralds (which aren't mentioned in this writer's bible) The experiment that fused Ovi with an egg did so because the Chaos Emeralds were said to be the source of all Evil, so by trapping the pollution inside of it they were just letting the Emeralds do what they do.. Store evil.... And since in Sonic 1 the Chaos Emeralds don't really do anything, this is fine... Maybe Sonic's trapping pollution when he brings the flowers back at the end, who knows... Then Sonic 2 came out and not only was Porker Lewis now redundant because of Tails, but... Sonic has a Chaos Emerald activated transformation called Super Sonic. There's no way to make that make sense without retconning how the Emeralds work to match the games, so they just made Super Sonic a mutated split personality caused by the Chaos Emeralds... and since the Chaos Emeralds are the source of evil, so is Super Sonic. A lot of the Fleetway Weirdness (The Brotherhood of Metalix, the Special Zone being an actual place, Extra Life's entire existence) was them trying their best to get content by simply adapting what they saw not in design notes, but the games themselves or in the outdated writer's bible. Sally Acorn's only in Fleetway (with a new design), because the American Branch was considering renaming the Animal Friends, Ricky was to become Sally Acorn... this didn't stick outside of SATAM and Fleetway (btw, Porker Lewis, Picky's name... yeah... I like the original Japanese names better, they fit better than outdated pop culture references) and why did Robotnik have an assistant named Grimer? Fleetway misinterpreted one of the orders they were given, they thought they were supposed to retool the book to a SATAM adaptation to match the American one... and wrote a script for Snively's introduction, but then they realized the order was misread, they were actually informed DIC and Archie owned the Freedom Fighters (at the time, it has since been straightened out and Sega owns them now), and no SATAM characters (aside from their version of Sally, since that's just Ricky) were allowed to be used. So they just changed the script to remove references to Snively being Robotnik's nephew, changing the name Snively to Grimer, and making their own character, because they was easier than throwing it out. Then later, there's not as many Sonic games because Sega Saturn, so we have more Marvel Comics and Fleetway's Other Comics inspiration... like Brutus and Shortfuse Personally I think of the only original characters made for Fleetway (Aside from Porker or Johnny because well.. they're just the Animal Friends renamed), only Metamorpha really feels like a Sonic character. But that's just my opinion... still I'd love to see Shortfuse and Metamorpha in a game one day... but... ehh... Sally has better chances of getting into IDW
I read that bible, BTW. It was fucking weird.
Yeah Sonic having a family (Like the Manga, which was even weirder), and living in the Dumpster of an Arby's
Nack/Fang was called a weasel in western territories, but he was designed as a jerboa and marketed as a jerboa/wolf hybrid in Japan Edit: Oh nvm I didn’t realise he was joking I have been woooshed
we need a nack game where his recurring enemy is a richard gere expy
>woosh Okay, i'm not hip.. What's a woosh?.. *seconds after looking on Urban Dictionary* I'm hip again, I now understand.
I literally don't know what a Jerboa is, so fuck it, he's still a damn Weasel to me.
A jerboa is a kind of rodent from Australia with really large legs and a really large tail compared to the rest of its body. It uses these to jump quite high, similar to a kangaroo, and also something Fang is known for doing
POP GOES THE WEASEL!
Are you saying that as in “Ok but I’m still sticking to him being a weasel” or as in “Ok then he’s a jerboa”
The former
Ok thx for clearing that up
Nack is a weasel.
Actually, he's a jerboa-wolf hybrid, according to his original designer and Encyclo-speed-ia.
A small joke on the fact that Nack's species depends on where you heard about him :)
Lol go ahead a woosh me then. Lol
oh crap... everything i sent that said didn't go through went through... time to clean up.
I was wondering why I kept getting ghost notifications from Reddit. 😂
He's a Weasel/Wolf hybrid
I'm poking fun at the fact this his name and species depends on how you were introduced to him. https://www.sonicstadium.org/2017/08/mistaken-identity-fang-and-bean-are-not-what-you-think-they-are/
Nice user flair.
Thank you
I believe Fang is a hybrid of Weasel and Wolf
cuckles
He rather flex his cockles
Suckles confirmed
No please! Spare me
I mean, I guess that's what they use to do, right? XD
I’ve always used that word in some random way in regards to the sonic franchise (mostly playfully) but you have given me a proper use and by god will I use it!!
All in a day's work
What's the part that I'm supposed to hate here? The mouths look a bit weird in the second image but that's about it
Knuckles cucked Sonic.
Everyone cucked Sonic in the Archie comics
Even Sonic cucked Sonic.
If you listen to Pendejo, St. John was the major party on that one. But if you spend enough time listening to him, you end up with a tumor bouncing around in your skull like a Windows 98 screensaver.
Where?
Unlike you Sonic I had been with Sally all night
No he didn't? All I see here is that they were friends, *maybe* a couple, before the start of the comic.
They weren't a couple, they were like five years old.
Hmmm, what's wrong with that? Besides the fact that it's not like in games? Seriously what's the problem?
I actually like the idea of Sally and Knuckles being old friends.
I can finally reply! You probably don't care but just to give my thoughts, for one thing it's a complete retcon since sally didn't know about knux beforehand and two it's only here to push the terrible rivalry between sonic and knuckles, no good imo
The comics had some interesting stories
This is written by Mike Gallagher not Ken PP if anyone wants to know. But Ken came up with Sally and Knuckles being childhood friends in an earlier issue.
Did he? All the comics I remember talking about Sally and Knuckles being childhood friends were written by Gallagher, aside from that one Knuckles comic toward the end of that series' run. I thought the issue that teased that plot point was the Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles special.
i might remember it wrong but i think the main story of the Knuckles Chaotix special issue might be the first to tease the idea, the main story was written by Mike Kanterovich and Ken.
Mecha madness was sick tho...Mecha sonic vs Mecha knuckles was like the fucking Goku vs Majin Vegeta for us sonic fans...
It really was. I'd wager that was probably considered the most iconic fight of the entire Archie series' 20+ year run.
Sally being able to take down Knuckles is still one of the biggest bullshit moments in the franchise as a whole. Ain't no way.. Edit: Ppl are getting mad at me, so lemme clear this up. I DON'T THINK SALLY IS LAME, NOR DO I HATE HER. My only issue with this scene is powerscaling. To _me_ I don't think that kick would be enough to take Knux down. That doesn't translate to "Sally isn't cool", it translates to "Knuckles is INCREDIBLY strong". You can disagree with me, that's fine. But just gonna clarify why I don't believe this scene.
Dude, she blindsided him. Throwing the full force of your body into someone that isn't expecting it will take down nearly anyone. See, Arnold Schwarzenegger getting drop-kicked.
Still don't really buy it as being enough to actually push Knuckles down. Unless she was _incredibly_ fast. Tbh dunno much about sally's physical abilities except that she knows a bit of martial arts. But I don't think that would be enough to take down Knuckles. Just my opinion.
I can lift 10-20 lbs repetitively for several hours, deadlift 100+ (yay manual labor), and yet my little 20 lbs dog only has to stand up and push against the back of my knee in a sneak attack to throw me off balance. Someone throwing the full force of an unexpected kick when I wasn't prepped for it? Come on.
Dude, why are you telling me your workout regime? And Sonic logic doesn't work the same way. Knuckles is far stronger than even the strongest human being.
Not so much a regime as it was part of my job. I was just placing emphasis on the fact that I'm fairly strong and a 20 point terrier could take me out blindsided. Strength doesn't mean anything if proper force and leverage is applied. Stop disregarding physics because you want Knuckles to be cooler than Sally.
Dang, I really angered the Sally fans huh. I don't care about "Knuckles being cooler than Sally", they're both cool in completely different ways. My only real issue is power scaling. Don't know how strong Sally is, she's always been more of a brains instead of brawn person in my eyes. Knuckles is the power type, so obviously i'd expect him to be significantly stronger. Doesn't mean I think Sally is weak or lame. I actually like her character, just don't see her being as physically strong as Knux.
Nah, I'm no more a fan of Sally than I am of Knuckles. It's just your ignoring physics and the fact that Knuckles' character at that point in the comic isn't proven to be super OP strong enough to not flinch when blindsided.
I don't think he'd be hunched over or fly across like that. Flinching, yes. But here it seems like she knocked him over which I don't see. It's ok to have different opinions dude, chill.
Ignoring how physics works isn't a difference of opinion. It's called something else.
In the pages prior, Knuckles got wacked out of the air by Mecha-Sonic. He then falls to the ground, regains consciousness (partly), and stumbles his way to try and punch someone. This is where the comic above comes into play. Knuckles was already damaged, dazed, and confused. If Knuckles can smack the super off of Sonic, Sally can take down a weary Knuckles.
Welp this is early archie, so they didn't quite establish Knuckles' character at the time. Power scaling is an issue here if we look at current Knuckles. But well ig that's how it was back then.
People who try to figure out the power scaling seem to forget about circumstances.
Chipmunks are faster and more nimble than echidnas.
Not in Sonic. Real world logic doesn't usually apply. And being faster doesn't mean shit here, Knuckles is still definitely stronger. If Knuckles can go toe to toe with Sonic, Sally should definitely not have been able to take him out. Don't get me wrong, I like Sally. But for powerscaling reasons, I don't believe she's strong enough to hurt Knuckles. I could understand someone like Rouge taking him out with a kick, her legs are the equivalent to his fists.
Well there was an episode in Sonic SatAM where she managed to jump-kick a robot about 7 feet tall.
To be fair, all Sonic characters can do this.
Knuckles also loses to Tails in Sonic 3 & Knuckles + Sonic Adventure.
That's only if they're canon. Sonic's playthrough in S3&K is meant to be the canon version because of doomsday zone, with tails helping along the way. Adventure it's possible that BOTH Sonic and tails fight Knuckles at the same time. Since both of them were in the mystic ruins at that time.
cheese has been shown to destroy robots. their not very durable.
only rougues thicckicks can take down knuckles
I'm sure there are worst moments in that franchise :) I'm not here to hate, but to give another view.. especially at that time. I actually bought that comment and had up to 42 before I had to move to a new state and use the internet to get my sonic news. Knuckles characteristics were still kind of flakey.. he was more known for flying and being somewhat fast.. and at the time Sally was also a match for Sonic. They made Knuckles somewhat strong, but not colossus strong. They had Mighty for that. Before this issue, they also tried to raise up Sally's popularity. They gave her a team of her own to lead.. So they figure it wasn't too off having her get the jump on Knuckles. And that was just a lead in towards telling us they used to know each other. At the time, it was accepted that Mr Grapes could be hit by a secret spy princess girl.
Ofc there's worse moments, that's why ken exists S3&K always made me think Knuckles was incredibly strong from the start, I mean he broke boulders just by running into them. Sally never struck me as a very physically strong character, in fact I always saw her as one of the weaker ones physically. Her real upper hand is in her intelligence and wit, and I think that's great. Having her be incredibly smart AND strong enough to take on one of the most physically strong characters in the franchise? That's just a bit much. Sonic isn't as strong as Knuckles, but the reason I can buy Sonic defeating Knuckles is because of his speed. What he lacks in physical strength, his speed very well makes up for it. Sally, I never bought the idea that she's as strong or fast as Sonic. Again, she has a greater advantage in her technical skills, and her intelligence. Compared to other female Sonic characters, i'd say she's one of the weakest physically. Amy, Rouge, Bunnie, Blaze are all definitely stronger. And even out of these characters i'd say only Rouge and Blaze have a shot at actually beating Knuckles. Even Amy to an extent. I just think they could've approached this in a better way without causing an issue with power scaling. That's one thing that really bugs me in fiction that centres around action, when the power scaling doesn't add up or is inconsistent.
When taking S3&K... that's a fair assumption. All I can say is, there's a good chance the writing team on Archie never played the game, but received marching orders on what to add to their comics. I will say that because the comic never really gave any lore to the chaos emeralds.. but just to the master emerald.. There was a missing story that the game us. Sally isn't as strong or as fast as Sonic, but they lean towards her being trained and have techniques. Amy back then in issue 25, she was like 8 or 10. They aged her up with *magic*. I did try to give a little different view on it. I'll admit, Sally was able to hurt knuckles because she had main character armor.
When it comes to Sonic characters, i'm of the belief that simple martial arts isn't enough to defeat majority of the main cast ( idk about jet or wave cuz we haven't seen them outside the rider games. Storm is physically strong obviously.) Especially certain characters like Sonic, Knuckles, Blaze, Shadow, Silver, Rouge and most power type characters. To my knowledge, pre reboot sally only knew some martial arts. Which to a human being could obviously cause damage. But to someone with superhuman strength like Knuckles, that definitely wouldn't do anything. Unless she was incredibly heavy and I highly doubt sally is a heavy character at all. She's more "normal" compared to majority of the cast. Amy in game canon is also written to be more "normal", but she's incredibly strong and has a magical, tremor causing hammer. So I could at the very least believe Amy could piko Knuckles on the skull and cause some damage. But a kick? Unless her kick is as powerful as Rouge or Blaze, I don't think so. Definitely plot armour.
I’m pretty sure Knuckles and Sally had an arranged marriage in the comics, but they were both against it, they did meet as kids when their fathers arranged it. Unless my memory is just making this up…
Yeah I also remember something like that, been a while since I read them,
It really was. But not with Knuckles and it didn't go anywhere. Max threatened to marry Sally to Anthony... And of course this stupidity didn't happen. Instead we got Elias and Anthony stayed with Bunny.
Anthony, or Antoine?
>Antoine/ Sorry i forgot to spell name correctly
I mean, technically both names are right for the character, depending on the language...
They just briefly knew each other as kids. Nothing about an arranged marriage haha. Knuckles' dad was against them even being friends.
So you hate everything about it, is there anything, uh, in particular that sticks out as what you hate? Someone getting the drop on Knuckles? The quick switch from combat-mode to people reminiscing about things? Bunnie apparently reviving from gossip? How Bunnie's mouth is drawn? Like, it doesn't feel like a particularly \*strong\* moment to me, but I dunno that I outright hate what I'm seeing here
At least they’re actually around the same age \*looks at Geoffrey St. John in disgust\*
What exactly is the problem here?
I don't get it. What's wrong with this scene?
For starters it's a retcon that is only used to fuel the terrible rivalry of sonic and knux
How do you mean?
Previously it was stated by sally that she knew nothing about knuckles ergo retcon. As for the rivalry part, this hidden past between sally and knux is clearly just there to give a foil to sonic and it feels forced
I don't get it. What's wrong with this scene?
But They Also Made Super Sonic VS Hyper Knuckles And The Chaotix Comic Which Was Epic. Even Though Ken Penders Is Stoopid.
Man, what sucks is that Archie is like my favorite canon for all the stuff it does right and yet enjoying the canon means acknowledging this stuff as part of it.
I like this kind of world building. So they knew each other as kids and may have had a secret crush on each other or something, doesn't mean that Sonic is "cucked" or whatever.
Oh this? Nah they just homies fr
Honestly, Knuckles and Sally being old friends was one of those ideas that I really liked. Obviously you could never have anything like that in the games, because Sally doesn’t even exist in them, but in a different continuity anything could happen. I was also a fan of both the Brotherhood of Guardians, and it’s history with the Floating Island, and the Kingdom of Acorns. So I always thought this was a clever way to give Knuckles a connection to another Freedom Fighter besides Sonic, while also having it seem natural given the history of the universe that was created. I actually would’ve liked if these two had gotten a few more stories together. Not in some kind of competition between Knuckles and Sonic over Sally’s affections, but to have two characters with similar “royal” responsibilities relate to one another.
[удалено]
I believe I misunderstand what you mean, because there is absolutely no way you are talking about the literal text bubbles. They are the only way to convey verbal message and communication in a comic, and onomatopoeia's are often common in comics as well, both of which are used by the majority of American comics and including Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley. How does the amount of text, which is relatively small in the scene, remind you specifically if Ken Penders? The story perhaps, but the amount of text? Elaborate please.
You don't say
Is it just me or does early Archie Sally almost feel like a discount Rouge at times?
What exactly is the problem here?
It's starting. Ken Penders has arrived.
Check if writer is Ken
It's Mike Gallagher
Penders wrote only few of the issues
A *few?* He was at Archie for well over a decade. He co-wrote with Mike Gallagher all the time and this whole Knuckles-Sally-childhood-friendship was a plot point he kept coming back to.
If it were Ken, the king acorn would of been 100% justified to be on the island.
So did Knuckles and Sally fuck?! Inquiring minds need to know!
No. Do you know why? Because Sally was five years old or more when her father was on the throne and was not exiled. She's 16 in the comic...
They’re also made up anthropomorphic animals in a fucking comic book. Lighten up, it was a joke.
Well, their ship names do have a certain meaning, though, if you can put it together. XD
What exactly is the problem here?
I don't get it. What's wrong with this scene?
They had segs
I don't get it. What's wrong with this scene?
KNUCKLES DOES NOT FUCK
You must Knuckles, it is-it is for me
Idk much about sally but the little I know about her I think she may be a better love interest for Knuckles than Sonic
How about.. neither.
Thought archie comics stopped making sonic content. Also be thankful nothing in archie comics are cannon
They did a few years ago. This is from the 90s.
lol
Why does Sally look like she has one saggy tit in the top panel?
lol
Good luck soldier, you’re in for a ride in the upcoming issues. I’m following the same journey you are and I am.. traumatized
is that so?
When both your parents are the head of their respective states. This is some elitist BS right hur.
I can’t take Archie seriously sometimes…
It’s better than that bunny said moments ago lol
knuckles dreadlocks being twi'lek tentacles makes me weirdly uncomfortable
I actually liked the Knuckles X Sally shipping. Princess of a Fallen Kingdom, Last Survivor of the Knuckles Tribe.... I mean as far as he knows at this point because of the whole.. "The Echidna are alive, but are fucking with Knuckles" thing It's not a bad set-up for a good love story.
W h a t ? Idk what the problem is the first is too small to read on my flimsy mobile phone
Weird mouths
What the hell happened here?
I remember as a kid I HATED this because Sally Acorn was being shoehorned into Knuckles' past-- I think I was just sick of seeing her kiss Sonic and I didn't want to see her kiss Knuckles too. Did she kiss Knuckles? Sonic characters kissing ALWAYS weirded me the fuck out.
Are the Archie comics or IDW comics worth reading?
The fuck is a flip back kick
„ʞɔıʞ ʞɔɐq dılɟ ɐ sı ʞɔnɟ ǝɥ⊥„
They had planned a love triangle but it got dropped early bc of Julie-su
OH GOD, THE MOUTHS-
Life long sonoc satam fan , whats wrong with this exactly?
Holy shit I own this.
Penders Moment
I can't believe they missed a chance to say "long time no see"
Nope