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edgy-ella · 5 months

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IDW SONIC READERS, PLEASE READ THIS!!!!

I am begging you. On my hands and knees. Begging. More so than anything else I’ve asked of this fandom.

Please please buy the Fang miniseries when it comes out

Don’t just read it. Buy it. I will admit that I’m very guilty of reading through a lot of IDW Sonic through…less than legal means, and I know I’m not alone in that regard. But I think it’s really important that for this miniseries in particular, you actually go out and buy the damn thing. Show your support with your dollar.

Really think about it for a second—they gave Fang his own miniseries. Fang! An underutilized, underrated fan favorite for sure, but hardly a mainstay of the series. I’m sure that this was at least somewhat prompted by Superstars, where Fang is a major antagonist…but Bean and Bark weren’t in that game, and it already received its own online promo comic prior to the game’s release (notably, with Fang as the star).

Classic Sonic stories have also exclusively been relegated to one-shots in IDW, not a full on miniseries like what Fang is getting. Basically all of the IDW Sonic miniseries we’ve gotten so far have been plot relevant side stories to the main IDW comic that focus on side characters with little to no involvement from Sonic himself. Tangle and Whisper, Bad Guys, Impostor Syndrome…the only odd man out besides this Fang miniseries is Scrapnik Island.

Really think about it for a second. FANG is getting his own focus comic BEFORE KNUCKLES.

And that’s why it’s so important that we buy it.

I think Sega is using this comic to test the waters to see if people like Fang and want to see him in more future projects—be it comics, games, or even cartoons. But there’s more to it than just that.

See, Superstars hasn’t been doing that great. I know I said in an earlier post that people seemed to like it, but I retract that statement. It was damned by faint praise at launch, and now most of the discussion I’ve seen surrounding the game revolves around its flaws (chief among them being the middling OST and that the Steam version stealth installs an Epic Games service along with the game). No sales numbers have been projected as of writing, but it’s definitely been beaten out by Mario Wonder and Spider-Man 2.

So, Classic Sonic games aren’t doing too hot right now (I’m sure that many modern fans are jumping for joy at the prospect). But the classic characters are.

People really like the extended classic Sonic cast, just as much as they love the extended modern cast. From my experience, the two fan favorites are Mighty and Fang. Fang stands out to me in particular for a couple reasons: people were really upset that Sega specifically said no to Fang, Bark and Bean coming back after Ian snuck in a reference to them in IDW Sonic #3 (using their old team name from Archie, the Hooligans), and the fanmade 16-bit remake of Triple Trouble, Fang’s debut game, received private praise from many members of Sega and Sonic Team. People like Fang and the media he’s in, and Sega is starting to take notice. That’s why we’re getting this miniseries.

That’s why it’s so important that the miniseries sells well. If the big boys at Sega and Sonic Team see Superstars’ iffy reception but see Fang’s comic sell above expectations, then Sega will want to continue to use Fang (and potentially other “classic” Sonic characters as well) in more narrative driven projects. That means modern Sonic.

“But Sega won’t let any classic Sonic character into a modern Sonic project!” I hear you thinking. And to that I say, so? Sega changes its mind all the time. Remember that whole two worlds nonsense? That was thrown out with in Tailstube. Characters debuting in Boom and the comics were previously barred from the mainline games, but they’ve broken that “rule” in both Speed Battle and Frontiers. Hell, they’ve even been talked out of some of their sillier comic mandates, like characters not being able to wear different clothing.

For all their flaws, Sega does listen, and money speaks louder than anything. If this miniseries fails, Sega will just assume that people aren’t hot on Fang or the extended classic cast anymore and throw them back in the bar. But if the comic sells well, then Sega might take it as a sign that, hey, people like this character (and his two lackeys), we should put him in projects that fans are more interested in. Mighty and Ray probably wouldn’t be too far behind, especially given Mania’s success. Whether that means comics or games, modern or classic, who knows. What’s important is that it sends the right message to Sega, and they will listen to their consumers. That means us. If we don’t support this miniseries now, we might have to wait another thirty years for another chance.

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pool-of-gwens · 1 month

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the unofficial rules of reading comic books (in my completely unqualified opinion)

1. do not start by reading Alan Moore comics (speaking from experience,, they're good but I would recommend getting used to the medium and understanding the social context of them first)

2. adapt to any new information given and accept that you will likely never fully understand everything

3. you will eventually find that comic writer that you hate with a burning passion (everyone has one) (and if you don't, you will)

4. new 52 fucking sucks (there are a few exceptions)

5. sometimes they will set up a storyline and then drop it

6. you do not need to understand the context of everything you read

7. you do not have to read everything in order

8. most comics have arcs of about 5-6 issues, these will likely come out at trade paperbacks or graphic novels later

9. YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY HAS GRAPHIC NOVELS!!!

10. try not to get stuck, I know it's easy to just read batman or just read marvel comics but please try to branch out or try something new,,,, reading only X-Men is fun and all but sometimes you gotta read some Blue Beetle too

11. other comic fans have different opinions to you, that's fine

12. every single comic has a biggest fan and a biggest hater (this is okay)

13. support your local comic shop/comic fairs

14. comics can be very dumb

15. the biggest difference between Marvel and DC is the name of the publisher

16. most DC writers/artists have written/drawn Marvel comics and most Marvel writers/artists have written/drawn DC comics

17. You should check out other comic publishers like IDW, Archie, Dark Horse or Image,, or even check out local comic makers in your area

18. canon is the things that stay the same when a different person writes a character

19. at some point every comic fan will read these comics, House of M, Watchmen, One of DC's many Crisis Events, a Marvel comic where The Phoenix Ruins Everything, the Comic you Hate Most in the World, Probably Something Written By Stan Lee and The Sandman

20. no one stays dead except Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben

21. the nineties in comics were the nineties in comics

22. you must read comics that don't have batman in it (please I'm begging you)

23. your favourite cartoon was likely inspired by comics (or written by) a comic writer

24. someone else has a completely different interpretation of your favourite character (and both interpretations can co-exist) (it is the nature of a medium that has so many creators telling stories about the same characters for details to contradict sometimes)

25. comics are artforms, they tell stories, they can be beautiful and thought provoking and gut wrenching and heart breaking and hopeful (or they can be none of these things)

26. questioning character choices, small details and information given in the comics you read is the first step to analysing and engaging with the material (so you think batman should kill??? now think about why he doesn't.) (you believe magneto is right??? now tell me why he's considered a villain)

27. sometimes it's deeper than you think

28. sometimes it isn't

29. remember the names of the writers and artists you love, too often comic creators are under appreciated

30. Jeff is people too

(feel free to add more)

#might add more later #comics #marvel #dc comics #batman #x-men #the avengers #jeff the land shark #long post

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chloeillustrates16 · 1 year

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Flustered Cheeks

(I haven't really read the IDW comics, so if this isn't accurate at all. Please, for the love of God, don't go into the comments and tell me that. I know that this is probably not accurate at all.)

Summary: After the mutagen blast and dancing around each other. Leo finally gets to talk to you alone.

Warnings: You're short, Y/n use here and there, no pronouns used.

You were saved by the turtles when you were fifteen. Ever sense then, you've been close to the turtles. Especially, Leonardo. He was the one that you saw first, his brown eyes, warm and caring. Something about him drew you closer.

After the Mutagen Blast, most of New York was mutated into animals. You too were also mutated, into a tiger. You stayed small, though which caused other mutants to mock you.

You and Leo were walking down the street, it was still strange for him to walk around in broad daylight. The two of you had boxes of supplies for the mutants that had lost their homes due to the blast.

"I can't thank you enough for this, Y/N," Leo smiled.

"Of course, Leo, you didn't need to ask."

Leo watched you, as you set the box on the table. Leo didn't know when he started to have feelings for you, but after a conversation with Jennika, that's when he realized.

After your mutation, Leo blamed himself. You were miserable; who wouldn't? Leo tried his best to help you through it, but you sort of pushed him away. Your reason being that you didn't want Leo to not like you more than you already thought he did.

Leo let out a sigh before glancing around, there was no one in sight. "Can we talk?"

"About?" you asked, your hands busy with the supplies. Leo rounded the table, lightly grabbing your hand.

"Please," you glance up and drop the can.

"Yeah," Leo's hand retreated from your own. He nervously rubbed the back of his neck.

"I know that you still haven't gotten used to being a mutant. I'm sorry, for this happening to you."

"Leo, it wasn't your fault."

"But it was!" he argued, "If we had stopped the Kraang none of this would have happened."

"Leonardo--" he froze. You only called him by his full name if you were pissed or serious. Sometimes both. You reached up, cupping his cheek. The one thing he missed was seeing your red face; whenever you laughed or got embarrassed, your face would flush a beautiful pink.

Now, your fur obstructed his view of your fluttered cheeks. Leo watched as you retracted your hand away; he was confused as you rounded the table. He waited as your hands bottled into fists; you pulled him into a tight hug.

Leo felt his heart skip a beat. You never hugged him before, even when you were human. He slowly wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer.

It wasn't that you didn't want to hug Leo in the past, it was just so hard for you to trust people. Leo knew how much this meant to you; You slightly pull away to look at his face. You felt your skin turn 100 degrees,

"This wasn't your fault."

"Y/n," he whispers. You realized how close the two of you were, Leo's warm brown eyes was so soft. Your hands moved up his arms to his neck. "Can I?" You nod, Leo leaned forward pressing his lips against yours.

Pulling away, Leo smiled. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"It's okay, I should apologize too. I pushed myself away from you, I didn't mean to make you feel like the mutagen blast was your fault."

"Why did you push yourself away?"

"I thought that...you wouldn't like me if I was this," you stared at the orange and black stripes going up your arms.

"I'm going to be honest with you, I think you look gorgeous. The only thing I miss is seeing you blush."

You let out a laugh, "I beg to differ, that was the only thing like about the fur."

"You don't think it's pretty?"

"Sometimes."

Leo leaned forward; Leo had always been a little taller than you, but you haven't felt this small before.

"I think the markings are beautiful," he brushed the fur against your forearm. "I think you're beautiful."

Your jaw went agape, you composed yourself after a bit. "You aren't bad looking either," you muttered.

"What was that?" he asked, teasingly. He had in fact heard you, he just wanted to hear it again.

"I said, you were handsome," Leo smirked. Trying hard not to freak out.

Around the corner, Jennika and Sheena watched not too far away. Jennika put her finger to her lips; Sheena was trying her hardest not to scream with delight.

#idw tmnt #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leo x reader #idw leo #idw comics #idw spoilers #x reader #tmnt #fluff #confession #first kiss #jennika #sheena

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most-tragic-character-tournament · 6 months

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So I'm afraid starscream will lose so here's some starscream propaganda.

(Spoilers for transformers IDW, shattered glass, earthspark, prime, and animated, etc)

First of all, before the war he was a scientist with his best friend Skyfire. They go on an expedition and Skyfire straight up gets lost in earths orbit and frozen. Starscream cannot find him and is forced to stop looking, essentially abandoning skyfire for millions of years.

During the war he joins megatron as a promising aerial expert. Now, as you can see he is now abused and tormented by megatron through nearly all the continuities. In the comics he loses his mom, but he finds her! She tries to take his body to do homicide, so he leaves her too.

At some point in the comics megatron and starscream swap bodies, while starscream is the ruler of Cybertron. So since he enjoys starscreams pain he sets his world ablaze and basically sets Cybertron into ruins.

In his time as the ruler of Cybertron, starscream is depressed, and basically lots of bots hate him. Windblade comes along, yadda yadda, he finds out his true form (he was cold forged, his spark was set into a pre built body which gives him body dysmorphia ) and after the whole ordeal he confesses his past crimes and resigns, going to jail.

Shattered glass, where everything good is bad and vice versa. Starscream is shunned by the rest of the bots for being with the decepticon cause and is stuck between staying with his friend skyfire or joining the decepticons. He chooses the latter. Later in the war rhe decepticon troops have dwindled and all are fending for themselves. Starscream looks for megatron, with success. They catch up and starscream convinced him to keep fighting. It is revealed that he has coding that can connect to a titan he dug up with skyfire years ago. He is captured by autobots and goldbug (bumblebee) rips out his spark (with the codes) right in front of skyfire. They fight over his still beating spark and skyfire gets it back! So now he keeps it around him while he travels or whatever he's doing now. (This summary is kinda unclear bc I read SG a while ago and don't remember it, but I summed up the tragedies pretty well)

Now into the series'. Transformers prime, he experiences torture physical, mental, and emotional under megatrons command. He is repeatedly beaten and is forced to beg for mercy. He gets his arm blasted off, makes clones whose pain he feels and they eventually die painfully. He starves a lot so there's that.

Transformers animated, he's a devious bastard but megatrons still tough as him, just not in the transformers prime way. He dies and becomes immortal, experiencing death many more times. And then his immortality gets taken away so he's dead for good.

Transformers Earthspark. Megatron is now an autobot working with ghost, and had abandoned all the decepticons, including starscream. Starscream is captured by ghost and is subjected to Primus-knows-what kinds of torture and experiments. He escaped but still remembers all the trauma megatron has caused him. Megatron is clearly not gonna apologize, made clear when he is eager to send starscream back to prison and full body tackles him. At which point starscream is freaking out, fearing for his life with all his previous trauma triggering emotions inside of him. After the whole ordeal is resolved, the terrans (earth born transformers) are the only ones who understand him (specifically hashtag) and he leaves, stating he will never feel safety around megatron.

Alright this is all I know, but let me assure you there is a lot more than this and I have barely scratched the surface of starscream's tragedy. Hopefully other people can add.

NOMINATE STARSCREAM AS TUMBLRS #1 TRAGIC CHARACTER!!!

[Propaganda]

#propaganda #Starscream #tw death #tw abuse #tw manipulation #tw murder #tw torture #tw starvation

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lord-squiggletits · 1 year

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Very important advice for anyone who’s trying to get into Transformers IDW: the fandom makes the story sound much more coherent than it actually is.

This isn’t me saying “fandom is wrong and makes up headcanons,” this is me saying that IDW1 spans like 13 years with a shitton of different writers, and a lot of lore that it’s most well known for (e.g. Functionism) didn’t exist until the latter half of the continuity’s run time. Most, hell almost all of the pre-war lore wasn’t covered until phase 2, with rare exceptions like Megatron Origin and maybe a couple of the spotlight issues?

But what you need to know is that when you see fanon posts about IDW1, these are made by dedicated fans who are looking at the entire series in retrospect and applying the lore from the later phases to the entire timeline. These meta posts make the story really fun, but if you read the actual comics themselves (for example, most phase 1 stuff), the material won’t actually reference any of this neat lore because it literally didn’t exist. So I think a lot of TF fans are misled when they get into IDW1, thinking the entire continuity will be lore-rich and one coherent story, when in reality a lot of the famous lore wasn’t introduced until later so earlier phases of the story did not take this lore into account (because it literally didn’t exist when the earlier series were written).

This is also why I’m begging people who are just getting into IDW1 to try reading at least some of the phase 1 (aka during the war) comics. A lot of people say these series are “boring” but I have to disagree. I don’t think people should fault phase 1 for not including lore that literally wasn’t even invented yet, and imo there’s a lot of interesting material that you can pull from phase 1. At the very least, you need to read a few series of phase 1 to have context for why certain things are happening in phase 2.

#squigposting #i'm always down for recommending idw1 series although my memory of phase 1 is very rusty #the main series i enjoyed reading was the transformers ongoing from uh 09 to 10 i believe?#and you need to read that especially if you're interested in reading exrid/OP #in general i recommend that you read series besides mtmte and ll #not just for variety but also because i genuinely don't understand how people can understand those series without at least #A LITTLE BIT of reading from other series for more lore background

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wanderingpen · 11 months

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Alright Transformers fandom I have a question

Where the HELL do you start reading the IDW comics

Because there's like 20 different starting points and I've tried picking up on it a few times but there's always SOMETHING I don't understand.

Please send help I want to consume comics

please

I beg

#transformers #idw #delete later #idw comics

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weirdlizard26 · 1 year

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I wanna get into tmnt but I've got like no knowledge of it at all. where should I start?

interesting question! no tmnt iteration is like another, but each is enjoyable without the context of the rest (although its really fun to notice little callbacks and references between them), so id say theres no wrong place to start. for the most part!

if i had to pick one, id probably recommend starting with the 2003 animated series. it was my introduction to the franchise! so maybe im a little biased gkjdfg to me, and probably to a lot of tmnt fans of my age, its THE tmnt. its quite plot heavy and focuses more on the action and the story than the humor (but theyve still got jokes! in case thats important to you). can get REALLY dark for a 4kids show, but its not excessive in heavy content id say. this series is probably the MOST faithful to the original comic, which is why i think its a good one to get your basics together.

i feel like after this, the order in which you watch any other tmnt media doesnt really matter. id also like to say a few words about some of the more popular ones, in case theyre more your cup of tea. under the cut!

1987 animated series (the first one!) - a completely different vibe altogether. probably more immediately associated with the classic turtles by the general public, although i personally havent seen it. its a very lighthearted saturday-morning cartoon that focuses heavily on the humor aspect, although there is plot development as well. VERY long.

the original comic published by mirage studios - PERSONALLY AND HIGHLY SUBJECTIVELY i wouldnt recommend starting with this one, but it IS the original tmnt, so if youre the kind of person who likes getting into franchises chronologically, well it doesnt get any older than that. i havent read it myself (save for the first 2 chapters), but its quite different from the mainstream image of the turtles, so it might not be the best place to start for a casual fan, but definitely worth reading if you get really into the franchise. afaik it was originally a parody of classic superhero comocs and it can get really dark, something to keep in mind

honorary mentions! but not great to start with in my opinion!

idw continuity - i highly recommend reading this!!! probably better after having watched 2003 and other more classic tmnt media!!! the origins, everything, is completely different from the start, but its just. a good comic i think! a lot of physical violence, very action packed and can get REALLY heavy in case thats not your cup of tea. but also found family :-) this summary is all over the place bc i like it so much dkfjngd oh yeah and its still ongoing! tho it might take a while to catch up (if you do decide to read it im begging you please follow the official chronology please dont skip any of the side arcs and whatnot theyre all crucial to the story!!! the first 100 issues as well as all mini series that came out in that time period are compiled into 13 volumes of the idw collection. very convenient!)

2012 animated series - i dislike this one but its. interesting to study. definitely wouldnt recommend starting with this one tho if you can help it. i also just cant recommend it in general but im currently running on -2 hours of sleep so if you want a more detailed rundown, thats gonna have to wait till tomorrow

rise of the tmnt - a great show on its own but probably a bad place to start getting into tmnt because it turns the classics completely on its head and watching it first will probably make the other feel iterations very confusing and even wrong. it still follows the 4 turtles, april and splinter, but most other characters are unique to this show, and most classic tmnt characters only get 1-2 episode cameos

there are more tmnt media out there, but these are the biggest ones + i dont really know much about the rest so

anyways SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG feel free to ask more specific questions if need be and remember this is just my very subjective opinion and i dont claim that its entirely accurate!!!! im just one guy with just one experience!!!!! ok thank you for reading hope you have fun :-)

#wl26 #wl26 answers #anon #tmnt #turtleposting

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beevean · 2 years

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I don’t think it’s right to beg sega or make a petition to get Flynn fired ‘cause those never work, but in all honesty I’d rather have him leave because of him realizing he doesn’t own the franchise and can’t just do anything he wants.

Maybe SOJ and especially Sonic Team and even Oshima and Naka should take a look at archie to see how they like seeing their mascot treat his game friends like shit, their main female lead sidelined in favor of a canon foreigner who leeched said heroine’s role, their main team/trio(team sonic) not even be an established team like the rest who were confirmed in the comic(Rose, Dark, Chaotix, Babylon), and just how long this mess went on. Also check out IDW.

Nah, petitions are just annoying. Remember "Rally4Sally"? Yeah.

There are three reasons Flynn could leave that I can think of:

he gets burned out and leaves. Likely, considering he's sticking his fingers everywhere now. Variation: what you said, Flynn much prefers writing for IDW because he has almost complete charte blanche compared to writing for a game.

he gets cancelled for some reason. Probably the worst outcome, nobody deserves Twitter sic'd on them.

the quality of his writing spirals so further down that he starts to lose fans, and he either retires like Pontaff or he gets fired by SEGA. Highly unlikely, considering how loyal his fans are.

(I'm not sure if he has a contract, and in case, whether it expires)

I'm also skeptical on Iizuka saying that he read IDW and liked it, because Iizuka didn't read the original IDW, he read a translation of IDW. Who knows how different the translation is? They could have trimmed down Sonic's speeches, considering how short Japanese sentences tend to be. They could have made Sonic nicer, which has happened. Sure, the plot beats are the same, Sonic letting Metal go will never not be a dumbass scene, but unless Iizuka can read English much better than he can speak it, he can only judge half of Flynn's abilities. (for example: I always liked the Harry Potter series including the plots, but I never knew that JKR liked to use "ejaculated" as a verb of utterance, because I never read the original books, only a translation, and a shoddy one at that. I can't judge JKR's writing properly)

To be fair, I'm not even sure if SEGA is aware of Archie Sonic. That comic was just a 20 year long fanfiction, from what I've read lmao

#sonic the hedgehog #anti ian flynn

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gggoldfinch · 2 years

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27 for the ask thing, love asking people that. Also, what makes it your favorite and how many times have you read it?

Thank you so much!!!

ask me things I’m begging

27. What’s your favorite book? Or just one you’ve read a few times?

Oooh good question! One I have several answers to!

For a long while, from about 13-15 years old, my favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s still one of my favorites! I read it twice for school and once for recreation and have always loved the story, and especially identified with Scout as a kid. Plus who doesn’t love Atticus and Boo Radley?

Honorable mentions through my life include (but are not limited to): the Beatrix Potter children’s books which I read/were read to me at least weekly when I was little; Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid, which I read probably around two or three times in middle school (admittedly I was one of those kids who liked The Kane Chronicles more than the Percy Jackson books); Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 which I’ve read twice; Susanne Collins’ Gregor the Overlander series (which I preferred to The Hunger Games); Stephanie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, which although has its problems, is wildly entertaining; an assortment of graphic novels and comics (IDW Transformers MTMTE, Hellboy, etc.). Additionally, I should add: various poetry books, notably Idiot Verse by (my favorite singer) Keaton Henson—which I have a large portion of memorized—and Cecily Mary Barker’s Flower Faries which doubles as an illustration book along with poetry; and my Norton Anthology Literature #C-F textbooks for school, which are extremely thoroughly annotated.

And last but not least, my (current) favorite book has to be Frank Herbert’s Dune. Which, based off a quarter of my blog’s, content shouldn’t be a surprise! I’m currently on my second reading of it! It took me a while to initially get into it (I’d tried for years but never got past the first few pages), but now that I’m acclimated to Herbert’s writing style, I find his prose easier to read than other books. I think the fact the book is so dense (content wise)—but easy to comprehend with prior knowledge/ context—makes it easier for me to focus and read it for an extended period of time, whereas other books can’t hold my interest for as long (Sorry HP Sorcer’s Stone, I abandoned you over halfway through…). It’s a bit tough to get into, what with all the political intrigue, philosophy, and religion, but I highly recommend it if you liked either of the movies!

Thank you for asking!!!! I’m totally interested to see if anyone has any commentary/ similar interests!

#i definitely overthought this question sorry #sorry it took so long to respond I have back to back classes all afternoon hsjdkdkl #ask game #goldfinch writes

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ninjapotatohead · 2 years

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SONIC & Dr. EGGMAN: An Analysis of Their Dynamic and Character

It shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, but I've been a Sonic fan for pretty much my entire life. I've played pretty much all of the games front-to-end, watched the many adaptations of said games, and even read some of the comics whenever I could. It's also no secret that this franchise has a very dedicated and passionate fan-base (for better or worse), and it's a thing of wonder to behold that some members of the community have their talents recognized by the team that brought the blue hedgehog's fame into the stratosphere.

...that being said, it always comes as an eyebrow-raiser that, despite being so fixated on the details of the Sonic franchise, the one thing that's always being misrepresented (not just in fan-made works, but now in official media as well) is the dynamic shared between the titular protagonist and his archenemy.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the interactions and dynamic between the main protagonist and antagonist (sometimes plural) can make or break a product. Especially when the subjects are as iconic in the world of fiction as Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman. Which begs the question of why do so many people misunderstand Sonic and Eggman's animosity, much less the core of their characters? How did I even reach such a conclusion to make such a bold accusation? Well, let's find out (assuming the title didn't make you lose interest, that is)!

Sonic the Hedgehog, as the world already knows, is a speeding blue dude with attitude who's always on the search for his next big adventure. He's not the kind of guy would have the patience to stay tied down anywhere; he's always on the move. You know, like the wind. Sonic never takes oppression and injustice lying down, standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves. He's an unequivocally good guy at the end of the day, but he lives his life doing what he thinks is the right thing to do; to hell with the consequences or what anybody else has to say about it.

Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik (with an optional pompous trilling of the R's) is a mad genius bent on world domination, hatching (pardon the pun) an array of schemes to build an empire/theme park/race track/etc in his own image with himself as the sole ruler. He's an absurdly intelligent man, and he knows it... and he wants the entire world to have this etched into their collective skulls. Considering that this guy can and has made machines that can very well achieve just that and generally cares not for the lives of innocent bystanders, that's probably not a good thing.

Pretty basic rundown of the characters so far. Nothing too complex or hard to understand. But, then we have the whole reason I even wrote this dumb essay in the first place; the amount of misconceptions surrounding these two and the extent of their life-long animosity.

Let's start with...

"Dr. Eggman isn't actually that bad of a guy deep down."

This may actually hold true to certain animated iterations of the character (Like Sonic X or Sonic Boom, depending on who you ask), but as far as the games/main canon is concerned, Eggman is still a bastard at the end of the day. He's a villain, one of the most iconic villains in the video game medium (up there with the likes of Super Mario's Koopa King Bowser and Street Fighter's M. Bison). A villain has no need to be deep and complicated in order to be effective.

Not to mention that he tends to treat his own robots like crap more often than not; especially when they spectacularly fail at a job that the doc himself has assigned them to. Matter of fact, for as much as the fandom loves to believe that Eggman treats Metal Sonic like a son thanks to the Archie/IDW Comics... the actual games showcase that this couldn't really be any further from the truth. Eggman's even straight-up just abandoned Metal quite a few times in the series when it benefited him (and only him).

Sentiments towards the game in question aside, Eggman literally just abandoned Metal on Little Planet after the events of Sonic CD, and Eggman only really brings him back purely out of convenience. Eggman doesn't really care about Metal Sonic as a sentient being with wants and aspirations; as far as Eggman's concerned, Metal is designed to be a killing machine. Metal is just the best at his job, and that's quite literally the only reason why Metal is ever given any special treatment or congrats compared to, say, Orbot & Cubot. Hell, whenever Metal shows any insubordination towards his master, Eggman either just abandons him, punishes him offscreen, or probably both.

And remember how I said earlier that Eggman is always hatching plans to achieve his goal of taking over the world, and that he doesn't really care who gets caught in the crossfire?

Yeeeeeeaaahh... That was NOT an exaggeration. Eggman's completely willing to throw countless innocent lives under the bus for his own ends, and without remorse. He more often than not just shrugs off the damage he (regularly) causes, and simply moves on to another crazy scheme. Has Eggman saved the world before? Well, yes. There have been a few times where he'll begrudgingly join forces with Sonic and friends to save their world... but again, it's always for Eggman's own self-interest. As Eggman himself has succinctly said...

Dr. Eggman already has quite a body count anyhow, and he doesn't care; as far as Eggman's concerned, what's a few more barrages of missiles into very heavily populated areas gonna hurt? Certainly not him.

And then, there's the supposed "smoking gun" people often use to support their argument. That being the ending of Sonic Adventure 2. After Shadow's... "Disney Death", Sonic and the gang (and Eggman) all have a moment of reflection once everything's said and done. Eggman himself expressing disappointment that his grandfather, Professor Gerald, had planned to destroy humanity. Sometimes, this is accompanied by Eggman being appalled that his old man also made a deal with Black Doom in 2005's Shadow The Hedgehog.

This argument falls apart for a number of reasons. The main reason being that Eggman himself has done so much worse than this. I mean, the sort of callous things he would do just for his own ends (aka the aforementioned nonchalant attitude towards the lives of countless innocents) are far beyond the scumminess of an old man who just wanted to save his dying granddaughter. That, and Eggman himself hasn't shown any signs of being all that affected by these revelations anyhow. By the time Sonic Battle rolls around (which obviously takes place after ShTH), Eggman's pretty much remained completely unchanged. Because he ultimately doesn't care. Moving on.

"Eggman is completely incapable of forming a solid plan."

This is, by far, one of the most flat-out untrue things I've heard regarding Eggman as a character, especially from a writer on an officially licensed SEGA product who should know better. It seems to me that every single example people use to support this... miss the point/context of each plan entirely. Even when Eggman's schemes don't always work out exactly as planned, Eggman is perfectly capable of adapting to a situation and turning the tide in his favor despite what Ian Flynn thinks. I'm so tempted be a complete smart-ass, just saying that the mere existence of Sonic Forces completely slaps this claim in the face, and leave it at that... but, I might as well address the more common examples of this argument (aka Ian Flynn's statements) rapid-fire;

1) "He blows up the Master Emerald to release Chaos just to feed him more Chaos Emeralds. He doesn't know what's its going to do, aside from giving it more power that he'll assume will be able to control. And we all saw how that went."

Yes he does? The man's read the stone tablets cover-to-cover; Eggman even blurts out that Chaos transforming was predicted by said stone monuments. Plus, even in the event that Chaos would've gotten out of control (which did happen), Eggman himself built a second Egg Carrier because he did consider the possibility! True, it didn't work against Perfect Chaos, but the fact remains that Eggman had a contingency plan. We saw how it went. Did you?

2) "He throws a missile into the heart of Station Square and went to manually detonate it because it didn't explode on impact. Didn't really think how far ahead that was gonna go!"

...yeah, this claim's bogus. This was Eggman's Plan B. You can choose to ignore gameplay/story segregation and say that Eggman's interference in the Chaos 6 fight was what put Chaos out of commission... and that simply wouldn't be a convincing argument because I can use that same logic and say that Eggman suicide-diving at Sonic in the Egg Viper fight was a highly effective move against him (still turning the situation into his favor).

3) "He single-handedly tears through G.U.N. facilities to grab Project Shadow, and he has no idea what it is. He just knows is a thing that he wants."

Okay, I never once thought SA2's plot was all that special, and even I know this is completely misinformed. Eggman storms Prison Island to procure Project Shadow because he had read documents about it in Gerald's diary (which literally has the old man goading whoever reads it to release Shadow into the world; Rouge herself surmises this). Eggman stumbling across Gerald's notes is what piqued his curiosity. Did we play the same game, per chance?

4) "Sonic Unleashed, he blows up the planet and throws Sonic and the Emeralds through the airlocks, except, oops, he needed those!"

Except, actually, no he didn't; he still was able to make his plan work just fine without them. Again, turning the situation around to work in his own favor; rolling with the punches and adapting to the situation.

5) "So no, Eggman never-ever has a solid plan. It's always a big execution, but he never settles on the details."

That's a funny way of saying you think that, because Eggman's plans tend to fail due to not being psychic enough to account for every possible scenario, Eggman himself is completely incapable of cognitive function. You know it's bad when even TVTropes calls you out on missing this much. Again, games like Sonic Forces exist.

"The Sonic franchise would be much more interesting if Eggman were replaced as the main villain by Mephiles/Scourge/Insert Evil Hedgehog OC here"

HahahahaHA, no. No, it wouldn't. What're you on about?

Really, what makes Eggman so effective as a villain is that the doc isn't some deity with otherworldly powers (Sonic 3 notwithstanding), nor is he a talking animal like Sonic or the rest of his friends. He's just a (relatively) normal human, and the only thing resembling a super-power that he has, apart from his absurd intellect, is his uncanny ability to cheat death. the series just can't really function without these two at each other's throats. Meta-textually, it's because Eggman's basically the Joker to Sonic's Batman. Whether the fanbase and Ian Flynn wants to accept it or not, Eggman's the main antagonist of the franchise, and like the titular hero, he's not going anywhere until the series actually comes to an end (which is not very likely to happen with a long-running franchise like Sonic). And, to steal an example from my GF, "Why watch/produce an entire Tom & Jerry series if you could only have Tom OR Jerry in it?"

"Sonic is all about giving second chances. This is why he never has it in him to out-and-out kill characters like Eggman or even Metal Sonic."

One of the more annoying ones I've seen. Just playing through the Storybook series alone is proof enough that Sonic is definitely not above ending a villain's life if he deems it necessary. And, believe it or not, he actually does more often than not. Biggest examples of this being characters like Void, Erazor Djinn, "King Arthur", and even Merlina.

Void was a lonely soul wandering the realm of Maginaryworld (yes, I know; dumb name). The dude was causing all sorts of trouble for this newfound dreamworld, to the point where Lumina was dead-set on making sure Void is dealt with. Sonic, in this case, did indeed have the power and the means to end Void's life; he could've done it... but (along with Amy, Knuckles and Tails) chose not to, as Void's very existence is necessary for Maginaryworld to keep itself running. As it turns out, Void is an entity born from negative emotions like sadness, emptiness, all that jazz. These negative emotions are exactly what cause dreams to occur in the first place (or at the very least, strengthens people's dreams), which in turn, keeps Maginaryworld around. Meaning that if Void is taken out of the equation, that means no more Maginaryworld. It eventually also turns out that Illumina was never kidnapped (nor was she even in any danger), as Lumina & Void are the two halves that compose Illumina. So, Sonic choosing to not kill Void here is a matter of necessity and pragmatism rather than any sort of blind "compassion".

Erazor Djinn, to put it simply, was a complete bastard through and through. He was a constant thorn in Sonic's side all throughout Secret Rings (both figuratively and literally). With how much of his dialogue is spent just taunting/belittling Sonic and Shahra, and with how little regard he treats Shahra with when she takes the bullet for Sonic (much like the hedgehog did for her at the beginning of the game), I can safely say that Sonic most certainly would've killed Erazor Djinn in a heartbeat if Erazor himself wasn't... y'know, literally immortal. Even that aside, he also still needed Erazor to grant Sonic's wishes with the lamp Erazor used to be bound to (and normally, I'd go into a tangent on how little sense this makes in context because it's Maekawa, but this essay is already getting long in the tooth).

Never mind the fact that Sonic was perfectly willing to violently de-horn the Mist Dragon (aka, the very first boss of Black Knight) and was not only perfectly fine with it, but also brags to Merlina about it; can we also bring up the fact that Sonic spends the entire game finding a way to kill "King Arthur", and has absolutely no reservations against attempting to slice a clearly depressed teenage girl into ribbons.

Contrary to popular belief, Sonic's never shown mercy to Eggman whatsoever. That whole Mr. Tinker fiasco in the IDW-verse might have been a perfectly fine exception because the Eggster legitimately (or maybe not-so?) did have amnesia, and punishing a once-evil man when he doesn't even remember a thing was quite a moral dilemma... but then, Sonic's negligence makes matters worse than they actually are. Sonic choosing to just let Metal Sonic go was a dumb decision any way you slice it because Sonic should've known that Metal Sonic is just as ruthless to the bone (or AI, I guess) with or without Eggman in the picture. Even if you want to argue that Starline was the one who threw a wrench in things, Sonic's still at fault here because he himself promised he would stop by Windmill Village regularly to check on Mr. Tinker. He apparently never lived up to his promise (which is already bad for a character like Sonic).

Frankly, the reason why Eggman continues to survive his scuffles with Sonic and friends isn't because they have some moral code against killing each other; Sonic and Eggman have attempted to do so multiple times. The actual reason (or reasons) being that Eggman has specialized in cheating death; he always come out relatively unscathed from scenarios that should've killed him millions of times over. And the reason why Sonic allows Eggman to concoct more of his schemes isn't because he's some "diet Spider-Man in a hedgehog suit", as much as I like to make the joke. It's never been that Sonic has never once attempted to kill Eggman before, because he most certainly has tried multiple times. It's actually because Sonic is a thrill-seeker who is just so confident in himself that he can handle anything the doc can possibly throw his way... because he always does.

I'm probably going to get crucified for this, but I'm just glad I finally got this out of my system.

#sonic series #sonic the hedgehog #dr eggman #sonic characters #character analysis

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transfemstarscream · 2 years

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i think the problem with a lot of transformer comics (not just IDW, though since it has been the longest publisher for transformer comics i guess the problem is a lot more prominent with them) is that comics are condensed stories, traditionally speaking: comic runs running for many issues usually weren’t +50-issues of the same, serialized story, but rather comics with arcs, parts, and deviations from the usual status quo, all wrapped up in one run that all had a central focus. the amazing spider-man (1963) isn’t a +700 issue run with a serialized, consistent story that’s been told for over +700 issues, but rather a run consisting of stories that centered around a main idea and weren’t limited to one overarching story.

this is because comics are different from TV shows and movies; you can’t tell a story in one issue of a comic the same way you can tell a story in a 22-min. episode of a show, nor can you tell a story in three issues the same way you can tell a story in a hour long film. comics didn’t have time for filler, which is why every part of a story told within an issue or through multiple issues mattered. it had to serve a purpose! that first page was always meant to set the mood; it never started off with “once upon a time” or pages upon pages of exposition to help you understand what’s going on, it went straight to the story because it had a story to tell in a limited amount of panels.

so when transformer comics tend to use issues not for telling stories, but for setting up stories that are to be told later, it feels like nothing has been gained because there really… wasn’t anything to gain. most of the time, the comics spent more time, more panels, more issues setting up a promised arc than actually telling the story! and it’s risky not just because of how much time is wasted setting it up, but also because, usually, the writer doesn’t know themselves if they’ll be able to tell it later. i can’t think of any off the top of my head, but weren’t there multiple characters in MTMTE/LL that people thought were going to be important later? that felt like they had their story being set up? felt like something was going to be important, but was only a focus in a few panels or few pages?

although i believe IDW2 has gained undeserved flack, especially when people try to compare it to its predecessor that had more than a decade to establish itself, there was a valid criticism in its earlier years! it was taking too long to get a plot going. sure, it’s good to establish all your characters, your worldbuilding, lore behind certain story elements… but how has the story developed in anyway? how has it moved from the last time we read it? the issues were released monthly, and for more than a year there wasn’t any sort of progress for the story other than maybe a character IDW1 readers are familiar with getting introduced there. being so obsessed with lore, worldbuilding, and stuff that adds nothing to the story efficiently other than try to add extra weight to it (that often never gets brought up again anyway) is why a lot of stories fail.

trying to tell a singular, overarching story in a comic form isn’t the same as if you had 26 episodes of a show to tell it. transformers overexpanding war stories won’t work as well in three issues than if you had three episodes. this may or not be a very long thorough explanation of comics as an excuse for me to beg IDW to release tf one-shots instead. please IDW give me an arcee one-shot focusing on her studying the blade.

#.txt #who wants me to talk about the beauty of telling stories in comics.

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projectshadovv · 3 years

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Okay okay hear me out: gimme your interpretation of an AU where, I don’t know, sonic goes missing (I’d say die, but, I’m leaving options open.) and how shadow, Amy and the rest of the gang could react to that? (Mainly shadamy b/c, I’m starved for content 😭)

this prompt reminded me of this amv i was obsessed with back in 2009

(theres a storyline in the description)

https://youtu.be/MnBDedJMrao

but for mmmyyy interpertation, i'll make it simple

basically amy gets worried after a while, she begs shadow for help, shadows like NOt Interested, but eventually after a couple months, even shadow's like, okay where is he and preteeenndss he's going on some top secret mission that he canNOT disclose to anyone, but hes gonna look for sonic 😏

amy, along with tails maybe, accidentally run into him while tracking sonics last whereabouts and she's like "what are YOUUU doing here" and he's like 'none of your BUSINESS'. hijinks happen, they gotta work together, yadda yadda, bonding happens, and sonic is saved BECAUSE i love sonic

you know, id love to read a fanfic of what happened in the SIX MONTHS that sonic was captured and GONE in Sonic Forces. What WAS shadow doing that whole time? did he ever think or worry about sonic? i know in the IDW sonic comics, Shadow was like "did you FORGET you were captured and tortured by Eggman??" and its like.....shadow....ur softness is showing.... ; )

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thanksjro · 4 years

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Eugenesis, an Overview: Let Me Get Weirdly Serious About This Book For A Sec

HOLY SHIT WHAT A RIDE.

So, let’s recap what we’ve learned over the last 282 pages.

In 2001, James Roberts published nearly 300 pages of fictional prose, based in the established franchise of Transformers, specifically the Marvel UK comic continuity. This novel tells the story of the Transformers, in their dwindling numbers, being attacked, not by their opposing factions, but by an outside force hellbent on revenge. Those who are captured by this force- the Quintessons- are stripped of their very individuality, forced into servitude until the moment they die of exhaustion. Everyone is pushed to- and in some cases beyond- their limits, the horrors of a literal genocide beating down on them like a tidal wave. Only by casting aside their differences and banding together can they hope to survive the nightmare that is the Eugenesis Wars.

But people don’t really talk about all that, even though it’s a majority of what the book’s about. No, people only talk about what happens after the Quintessons are defeated. People only talk about the robots getting pregnant, because honestly it is the most bizarre thing.

Not because the idea itself is terribly odd- I mean, at least it’s in line with the lore the comics set up. It’s bizarre in how we get to that point. All the torture, all the suicide and death and depression and destruction of entire belief systems, leads up to these robots getting pregnant. Almost like that was the whole point. And considering that this story is presenting to us a bridge for the gap between the classic Transformers and the Beast-Era ones, it could have very well been.

I won’t say fetish, because that doesn’t feel quite right, but our dear author seems to have a sort of… obscene fascination with the concept of mechpreg. A fascination that will carry on well into his career as a professional comic scriptwriter, setting readers on edge for the duration of his run with IDW.

Comparing Eugenesis to More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light, you get an interesting view of Roberts’ growth, as both a writer and a human being. Eugenesis is the work of what Billy Joel might call an "angry young man”, focusing on the despair of wartime and the futility of one’s struggle against the flow of time and mortality. The theme of time only being perceived as linear, and being in actuality an unending plane where all moments are equal and eternal might seem oddly specific, but it’s reflected upon by multiple characters within the story of Eugenesis. Perhaps this is why he has Brainstorm and Perceptor collectively and completely jack up time itself in the Elegant Chaos storyline.

Character moments sprinkled throughout the narrative give us a glimpse of the relationships that would be written later on- some of the most compelling scene writing happens between Quark and Rev-Tone, two original characters who have such a delightful dynamic between them, they very quickly became some of my favorites. You truly believe that they care so strongly for one another, they would do just about anything to keep the other safe. And they do, in a couple cases.

Then there’s all the death. There’s a lot of death in Eugenesis, and none of it is by way of natural causes- you’ve either got suicide, murder, or suicide-by-way-of-murder. You really see Roberts shine in these death scenes, both then and now, as he captures the utter, raw tranquility as one stares down their own demise, and on the other side of the coin, the complete annihilation of one’s very heart as someone they love is destroyed. It’s downright poetic how he handles these scenes.

Still, there is a difference in how the aftermath is handled. When someone dies in the MTMTE/LL run, there’s always meaning and purpose to it- nobody dies just to die, and those who are left behind are left at least something to comfort them.

A message of love.

The return of a friend.

A chance to keep living.

A chance to be a better person.

You don’t get that in Eugenesis. In most cases, there’s no salve for the wound, only more hurting. There’s no time to even mourn, as the fight rages on and on and on. Any happiness pulled from the narrative for the characters is laced with a bittersweet understanding that these folks probably aren’t going to make it, and they’re just as aware of that fact as the reader is.

And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about that, in a twisted sort of way.

Eugenesis is a sort of love letter to those dark thoughts hiding in our heads, those deeply scary intrusive visions of everything we care about being ripped away from us. It’s a book make up of catharsis, of hurting that begs for some sort of outlet. The characters in this story are lost, and scared, and hollowed out before the mass extinction even arrives, and are put through wringer after wringer, like some sort of distanced facsimile of self-harm.

Perhaps I’m reading a bit too into this, but with how intense things get, with self-insert characters no less, I can’t help but wonder if the James Roberts who was writing Eugenesis truly needed this outlet in more than just a creative sense.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with this novel just because it was a vessel for catharsis. Pacing can end up going so rapidly it feels as if you’re being pushed towards the edge of a cliff, then stutter to a halt to the point where continuing on feels like an absolute slog. But it always seems just as you’re about to put the thing down and give up, something completely thrilling, completely insane and powerful and profoundly attention-grabbing happens, pulling you right back in. If nothing else, this book demands one’s attention.

There are also some other, more interesting issues with Eugenesis. Issues I wasn’t really expecting to run into. To highlight one such issue, we’re going to play a game.

The game is called Guess That Character Design!

Hey Transformers fandom, got a new quandary for y’all to fight over. Forget the Frenzy/Rumble color debate, forget the Bombshell/Skywarp is Cyclonus debate, it’s time for the What The Actual Everloving Fuck Is Quark Supposed To Look Like debate! Do we follow the comic and its script, which show him as being either about on par with Rev-Tone and Mirage or taller, but fails to note any sort of color because it’s in black-and-white? Or do we follow the novel, which states he’s short exactly once, and crimson? And if he’s red, where did the blue paint chips come from in Part Five? They sure didn’t come from Rev-Tone, who I know is mostly red- not because the novel told me, but because I’ve seen art of him outside of this. Honestly, other than him having big honkin’ shoulders and a bust to match, nothing about Quark’s visual aesthetic is concrete.

Now, I could tell you all about his quirks and mannerisms, how he holds himself, how he talks, how he interacts with others, all sorts of stuff. Nothing wrong with the writing there, characterization’s great! I just couldn’t tell you for the life of me how his body is supposed to look. Rev-Tone’s in the same boat, except it’d be even worse without the helpful input of some friends. Did you know he has a visor? Because I sure as shit didn’t until someone showed me. It’s never mentioned in the book. You can barely see it in the prequel comic art if you’re looking for it, and the script is less than helpful to me because I’m not Matt friggin’ Dallas, nor have I had the pleasure of reading Transtrip. All the information presented in the novel about his looks involves his mouth.

Hell, some of the writing in Eugenesis seems to imply that he actually just has normal eyeballs.

What I’m getting at here is that Roberts leans a bit too much on the reader knowing exactly as much as he does about the characters, the plot points, the lore. And he knows A LOT about Transformers.

This book essentially requires the reader to have the wiki open with multiple tabs at all times. Roberts put his heart and soul into the prose, but the world-building had his nerdy little brains smeared all over it, because there are some obscure references in here, not to mention the sci-fi jargon. You basically NEED an internet connection to get through this- I’ve never read a novel that pretty much forbid an acoustic reading, but here it is, in all its glory.

Eugenesis is a dark, morbid, conflicted story with the oddest little bright spots in it. Within five pages, you’ll go from some of the most horridly bleak death scenes to someone accidentally burning a hole in their hand like a cartoon character. But never once, in nearly 300 pages, does it ever stop trying. It may not succeed in what it’s attempting 100% of the time, but goddamn does it go as hard as it can. This isn’t something that was done for money, or fame, or anything like that. Eugenesis is a passion project in the purest sense, and you can really feel it in the way it’s been crafted. For all the frustration it put me through, never once did I think “man, this guy just doesn’t care.” The ambition Roberts shows in the prose, in the world-building, in all the funny little moments that show just so much personality within the story, truly were harbingers for what was to come just a decade later.

Ambitious. Bleak. Brutal. Weird. Ultimately unforgettable. That’s James Roberts’ Eugenesis.

But let’s get to the heart of the matter, shall we? The one question that truly matters for any novel: is it worth reading?

Well, that depends.

If you had a hard time with the darker parts of MTMTE/LL, I really couldn’t recommend that you read Eugenesis. You will have an awful time, because most of it is Grindcore x100 levels of depressing and brutal. There were a couple points where I had to take a break because things got so intense- and I’m not exactly squeamish. Maybe stick to a breakdown- like this one!- or try a group read-along. Friends make everything better, after all.

If you like Roberts work and want to see where he came from, like I did, I highly recommend you find a copy- digital of course, there are only a few hundred physical copies in existence. I recommend you find the 2nd edition, which includes Telefunken and fixes some of the more glaring continuity mistakes and typos.

It’s a good read. Just... it’s a lot at times.

Like, a lot.

Up next-

Oh, what? You didn’t think that was it, did you? This url is way too sweet to just be done with so soon.

Next, I’ll be taking a gander at Children of a Lesser Matrix, which is something that was never finished by Roberts, but is still floating around the internet because hey! It’s the internet.

If anyone has any other somewhat obscure writings from JRo, feel free to send them my way. Especially if you have any of the TMUK zines from back in the day. I wish to consume all the works.

#transformers #jro #eugenesis #recap #maccadam #Hannzreads #incoming analysis #overthinking about robots #text post #long post

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales (Comic) Reviews!: Happy Happy Valley!/Fight! (Issue #4)

My first look at the IDW Ducktales Comics! And for a comission by @weirdkev27! Seriously he’s basically my boss at this point. If you’d like to comission your own comic or animation review just pm me or shoot me an ask to get my discord. Single stories for a comic are 3 bucks, single comic issues and single episodes of a show are 5 bucks with deals on multiple issues or episodes of a show. With my shameless plugging out of the way the stories themselves are:

Happy Happy Valley! (The Comissioned Story): The Main Cast sans Beakly end up stranded at a resort where everyone’s forced to be happy all the time. A classic trope with a twist ending you can’t predict.. mainly because it’s..

Fight!: The boys have a garage sale with stuff from the broom closet to raise money for Huey’s woodchuck trip. Naturally this quickly snowballs into a samurai fight to the death.

Wonders, a full recap with spoilers, and extreme stupidity await bellow the cut.

After a quick commission break for this week’s episode I’m back in the saddle and back into comics no less! It’s been exactly a year since I’ve done a single issue comic review. Oh sure I looked back on house of x, and will again next year, and I do want to cover Empyre at some point and some other comics, but I haven’t done a full recap of a single comic book in some time. But the first story of this issue really, REALLY confused and infuriated Kev, and rightfully so, so I got the commission call, and of my own volition I’m doing the second story entirely for free. I just wanted to do both for completion’s sake and because when I did read this comic I remembered the stories not being very long so it gives me more to write anyway. And if your curious yes I would gladly review classic Don Rosa, Carl Barks or really any duck writer’s work on a story by story basis, it just works easier to do the Ducktales issues all in one since their both more recent and I don’t have to go back and do it later if, once i finish seasons 1 and 2 at some point in the distant future, I decide to do this series too as well as the Sound and Fury mini that was clearly used to offload stories they had left over.

As for my experience with these comics I DID read them when they started out. .but quickly petered off and never even got around to this story, I remember reading page one but never read the rest of it. Part of it is I tend to flitter in and out of comics and part of it was the stories just weren’t that gripping, with the characters often feeling like flatter versions of the far more multi-layered one’s in the show proper and the stories being a bit too short to properly flesh things out like the show, especially since for some weird reason each issue has two stories instead of having one big story on occasion. They weren’t bad and there is a story or two I want to go back to like Lena and Webby being spies together, Fethry and Fenton have a story together apparently, we get an early look at Della, and there’s one where Bradford hints at them plotting against scrooge long before the show revealed it. There’s some interesting stuff I might look at eventually, I just have a LOT of show to get through too, and i’m not going to pidgenhole the entire series as bad or lackluster based on a few early issues.. or one story in this issue. But yeah i’ve held it off long enough.. let’s talk about

Happy Happy Valley!

First off the titles for these are .. pretty lack luster. Their basically just what the stories are about.. Happy Happy Valley and a Fight, that’s.. about it. I didn’t realize just HOW awesome the show is at titles, making each sound like a thrilling and unique adventure which they usually are, until I got to here. It feels like IDW, and by extentsion disney, didn’t care what the stories were called and just wanted a comic out to tie into the show. Which bothers me when they put this on IDW, clearly having a release platform for disney works.. but didn’t bother to use it for their Darkwing Duck comic continuing from the original, the reprint of the BOOM! Studios comic, or the short lived Star VS Comic Deep Trouble, which I will be covering at some point as it was pretty good. Same with the Boom! Studio’s darkwing, I just want to watch more episodes before revisiting it. Point is the title isn’t great. The story is even less than that.

We open properly with our heroes.. all woken up from their beds in the middle of the night for an adventure. It’s not a bad start, though Louie weirdly starts in constantly about how Scrooge’s rich and can do this and that and Subtley dosen’t exist in this story does it? Anyways, later, far away from Louie’s bed.. that’s the caption they go with and I love it, the Sunchaser suddenly stops working and Launchpad’s crashing skills come in handy,

This isn’t a bad scene as Donald brings up good points and likely has his own “times he’s been nearly sacrificed tally” like Louie.. and Della likely also said “Della’s coming out on top!” when her total went into triple digits. Also “When your rich you can even buy luck launchpad”

It just.. dosen’t fit Scrooge at all.. granted this issue hasn’t BEGUN to not fit Scrooge at all but let’s save that for the end. Anyways rather than hostile locals they find Gladys Seeya, good pun, an overly smiley woman whose eager to please and just wants everyone to be happy and has them carried because tired people aren’t happy. Yeah it’s suspcious as heck and a well worn trope, really nice place with a dark secret, to the point the series proper would parody it in the Mervana episode, and subvert it by having them turn out to just be very nice hippies who i’m still convinced had a three way with Donald... I mean he could use it, they were really nice, and Donald is probably very generous. That’s something you didn’t want to think about but now you have to and it’s there. If you GENUINELY think that’s bad, then you should hear about Goofy’s sex life.

See way more horrifying. Now everyone’s miserable! Horay! Moving on, point is Donald had a mer-three way and this is a well worn trope, but it is used in an interesting way.. that’s entirely ruined by the stupid ending, but we’ll get to that. Point is everyone is soon happy, given a buffet, all the food they can eat, and whatever they want. They just want you to be happy.. no secret plot here.. wink. Louie continues his annoying “Every rich person gets X” schtick which feels forced as hell and gets worse with every line and more obvious. It’s one of the weaknesses with this story. It’s basically the writers constantly elbowing you and saying GET IT.. YOU GET IT.. BEING HANDED EVERYTHING YOU WANT IS ANNOYING GET IT. YOU GET IT. The problem is.. the Island’s moral dosen’t fit that. Kev helped here as we discussed the issue once I finished it, as I hadn’t thought of it yet, but the valley isn’t about giving you everything you want.. it’s about just FORCING you to enjoy things. Sure you can be happy off some things like the food but when Donald politley declines to dance because he can’t, which tracks with his life in general, they basically all glare at him to do so. Later they basically force acvitites on them with the ducks only agreeing because clealry they worry about what might happen if they DON’T. Telling someone to smile or enjoy something dosen’t make them enjoy it it just makes them miserable. Problems are 1, the issue very clearly WANTS to have the other moral and 2) the series would do this kind of story MUCH better with “Mystery at McDuck Manor!”. That’s not on the writers fault, as this comic started right before the show premiered and this issue came out before said episode, but it really doesn’t help the show came along with the same exact moral of not forcing your idea of fun on someone else and did it WAY better. It’s the same message, the ducks being forced to endure something only one person thinks is fun, but delivered right and wrapped into a very clever and fun mystery. Honestly I might cover that one this week or sometime soon because it both fits the Halloween season and this issue if nothing else reminded me how good THAT episode is.

But I’m stuck doing this issue. Naturally, and in one of the issues few clever moments, the Ducks try booking it out of there as soon as they can but find their raft gone, and a ring of sharks suddenly there that weren’t before, and Donald understandably doesn’t want to risk the kids lives with that. Thankfully Webby soon comes up with a plan using the activities, and uses a napkin to get it around. This bit.. is actually clever as they use the various bits to get a plan and even Huey has a really clever bit where he just leaves his hat and shirt behind to go looking for the generator, likely on Webby’s request, knowing his brothers can just play him once in a while to draw suspicion. Also apparently Huey wears a tank top under his shirt, which looks weird on him, as he’s not the sporty type, but does fit his “always prepared” mindset well so I like it. Using Basket weaving and balloon decorating, they create a way out, and Webby ties up their host while everyone escapes. They nearly don’t fit out but luckily Donald contributes. And again i’ll give the story this: Donald does more in this one story than he got to do in the vast majority of season one. So our heroes escape with other patrons begging them to take them with them and the stories apparently wrapped up. The generator Huey found was to show the sharks were just holograms which given the science in this world makes sense, as does it jamming the sunchaser. What doesn’t make sense, and what got me my three bucks for this review in the first place is this. I”m putting the full picture there both so you can let it sink in and to let you know, since most of you probably haven’t read this comic, that i’m not making this shit up, nor is it one of my jokes. This .. this is the actual twist for the comic.

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This is probably the thrird dumbest line in comic book history. Before you ask the other two are

And why yes those are both from the series. And why no I will not be covering All Star Batman and Robin unless someone forces me too. My point is WHAT THE FLYING HELL IS THIS. I mean this makes NO sense on any level. For STARTERS one of Scrooge’s most well known traits, that’s part of his character in every version is that he doesn’t like to spend money. He will to MAKE MONEY and sometimes grumble about it but if he doesn’t. Even if season 1 had it dialed way back, he still reused his old teabags, charged extra on his in house vending machines and tried to get out of buying burritos for recently freed slaves. Being cheap is an iconic part of his character. Granted the series took out things from the comics and original like underpaying employees, barely paying Donald even though in the comics he supports three children, as well as barely paying those children, and refusing to donate to orphans, but still it’s not THAT so far removed that THIS is remotely in character! He had to either buy this old resort or have it renovated to keep up the ruse, pay for the creepy lady running it, pay for the other guests as actors because otherwise his hired minion KIDNAPPED people who were begging for escape, pay for the activities/escape supplies, and pay gyro to build the GIANT GENERATOR THAT BOTH PROJECTS SHARKS AND MAKES TECHNLOGY NOT WORK. While I do think Scrooge would gladly want to teach Louie a lesson, this is a lesson that at best costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not at least a million to pull off. And that’s not even getting into how he forced everyone else to go with it, denied them a good night’s sleep and clearly told NONE of them. Beakly not being there actually makes more sense as she would’ve noped out of this horrible horrible idea and bonked him on the head for this. It makes no sense and it’s GROSSLY out of character. And while I’m used ot that from comics, writers often don’t give a shit about the characters their writing, I expect better from DISNEY when it comes to lisencing shit. They’ve done better. I’ve mentioned better and even SINCE this they’ve done better: Christos Gage’s Incredible’s Comics are excellent and I want to read more of them. And the previous run by mark waid is also suitably incredible, if now sadly no longer canon. And even in this very ISSUE there’s a much better, if not amazing, story we’ll get to in a moment. I get disney’s greenlit weak tie in material before but this is ridiculously bad and shoddy. Shame on them, shame on the writer, and shame on this INCREDIBLY stupid story. We get an everybody laughs ending, who cares. we’re out.

Final Thoughts for Happy Happy Valley:

I don’t have much less to say about this story. This about sums it up.

Fight!

We open with a samurai.. though it quickly turns out to be Dewey with a mop on his head hitting Louie with a broom while saying Two Damage! Two Damage! and already in one scene this is so much better and feels so much more natural. Naturally this story has a different writer. The artist is different for both too, and the art is good on both though I do prefer the art for “Fight!” more as it’s a bit more expressive. Though it also benefits from having less characters to juggle so that probably helps. The boys are having a Garage Sale, or Yard Sale as some call it. As a huge fan of Garage Sales, I’ve gotten tons of stuff from them over the years and good shit too like my G1 Snarl, or even just recently a three in one of the first three loud house Graphic Novels for a freaking quarter. You REALLY can’t beat that. It’s why I love these things. So this story already had my money. As for why, Huey needs money for the Junior Woodchuck Camping trip. How else is he going to hold hands iwth Violet and Boyd under a tree. Wait neither of them existed yet. Damn. Well i’m retconning that in anyway. If they can retcon the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver not to be mutants, which If eel is getting undone VERY soon, or if not Hickman will use that well, I can retcon this to taking place in season 3. Plus i’ts all very wholesome and innocent... their only eleven.

But yeah Scrooge in a nice moment if an off-screen one gave them the contents of the broom closet.. which is really just a bunch of old used up brooms, some buckets and other cleaning supplies. Probably stuff Beakly rarely uses or has long replaced and if not.. well he’ll have to pay for them himself won’t he. Unlike the above clusterfuck this.. feels entirely in character. Scrooge likely apricates that Huey is working hard to EARN the money for his trip and that his brothers are helping, especially Louie since he gets nothing out of this unless they go over what Huey needs. But also being Scrooge he still only gives them some old Junk. But Louie, being louie easily scams a guy into paying 15 bucks for a broom. Still this is slow progress and if Huey wants to be with his poly relationship he’s gotta step it up. Luckily, and naturally given this is Scrooge’s closet, they find an old Samurai helmet, which Huey feels could be worth millions. granted...

But eh it’s going to a good cause, tiny children holding hands by campfires, and when has common decency EVER stopped Louie? Dewey though, wants to start a collection of war stuff.. starting with this. It’s part of why I LIKE the story better: not only does it have much better dialouge but it’s actually rooted in the characters instead of “One trait of Louie’s cranked up to 50 and drilled into our heads”. Huey is trying to earn money for the woodchucks, Dewey only wants something for petty reasons and Louie wants money. It feels like the actual characters and not just cutouts and makes me wnat to read more stories in the hopes of finding more like this. Anyways naturally nothing Scrooge has in any of his storage areas of the mansion tha’ts ancient isn’t cursed, magical or really neat to look at, and the helmet comes to life as they fight over it, and the helmet clints to Dewey, who talks in a deep red voice calling himself Ronnith of the Twin Samurai. The name.. isn’t great but the concept is. Thankfully Huey knows what it is thanks to the guidebook. and just like the Donald bit last episode this one story gets the guidebook better than season 1 did a lot. Turns out the twin samurai were two brothers who hated each other and always competed for their mothers affection.. their mother was also forced to sell her beautiful sculptures for next to nothing after their father left. Instead of going after him though they both blamed each other as teens when invaders struck and burned everything including their mom I guess down, and fought the rest of their days, and while Ronnith never settled things due to growing too old, his spirit, and his intense hate, went into his helmet which now curses any brothers who fight over it to fight with the looser turning into a statue.

Naturally no one wants this but Dewey can’t get the helmet off and Ronnith possess him to destroy the guidebook.. though Huey explains it’s his “third backup copy” which.. yeah again like the tank top thing tracks. Ronnith then manifests armor on Louie and we get the image above.. which is really neat. With Ronnith forcing the two to fight each other, Huey searches for a way to stop it. And while he can’t find it he does figure it out and the solution is REALLY clever: Just as Ronnith’s about to kill Louie, with Dewey apologizing.. Huey blocks. And Ronnith is naturally confused and upon finding out there’s a THIRD brother, the curse dissipates and thus everything’s back to normal. And wrapping things up nicely a guy shows up to buy the helmet and while Dewey tries to just give it away Louie says it’s free with purchase of a bucket for 50 bucks so Huey has his money to go on his romantic camping trip.. though he does ask if hte guy has a brother.. best be safe. Final thoughts on Fight!: It’s like night and day. While the previous story is stilted, has one of the worst endings in duck history and overall is just kind of bland outside of one or two moments this .. is really good. It doesn’t add much to the world or anything, but it’s a fun side story with a clever monster of the week and resolution, some great lines and some good art. This is what should’ve lead the issue, as the main story is again just dreadful. Overall i’d recommend checking this story out.. though maybe get in in trade instead as the A-Story here is really bad, but you can find both on comixology and this issues on comixlogy unlimited if you want to check it out along with a ton of other great comics.

That does it for this review, if you liked this I do regular coverage of ducktales every week, I JUST COVERED THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YESTERDAY. So check that out and until next time vote if you can and check your house for Gary Busey!

#ducktales #ducktales comics #reviews #scrooge mcduck #louie duck #donald duck #launchpad mcquack #huey duck #huelet #webby vanderquack #idw

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