Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with forty-year-old future Sonic himself being one of the only people who remembers the alternate timeline, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
I missed the conversation on hard video games but I beat Batman 89' on the NES without dying or taking more than two hits.
I had been playing for months because it really entertained a friend of mine and I was going to hang up the controller having accomplished regularly getting to Joker using two lives to beat him, so this was a last hurrah run and I downed half a solo cup of whiskey and had finished the game right when it started to hit.
Also as it turns out Batman just straight up murders the Joker at the end of the NES game. Batman just pitches him off the belfry.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with future Sonic himself being one of the only people who realized his children had been erased from the fabric of space-time, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with future Sonic himself being one of the only people who realized his children had been erased from the fabric of space-time, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
The roboticized humans part was super dark. Robotnik was all like "Hope you guys enjoy living in Robotropolis! BTW, you've at this point all been exposed to incredibly high levels of pollution that will certainly kill you soon unless you let me turn you into robots."
I never read any of the post-reboot Archie Sonic comics. Were they at least a little less dark?
Most I know about them is that they redesigned the Freedom Fighters to fit in better with the designs of characters from the games, brought in reimagined versions of characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that it essentially ended with a gigantic Sega and Capcom team-up against Sigma from Mega Man X.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with future Sonic himself being one of the only people who realized his children had been erased from the fabric of space-time, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
I never read any of the post-reboot Archie Sonic comics. Were they at least a little less dark?
Most I know about them is that they brought in reimagined versions of characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and that it essentially ended with a gigantic Sega and Capcom team-up against Sigma from Mega Man X.
I believe the last Archie comic I ever read is an apparently infamous Super Special issue that is 90% words on a blank white or black void that no artist or writer wanting credit for doing, and I found out years later, thanks to Bobby, that that issue also dealt with Ixis Naugus, which was absolutely not clearly indicated by that travesty of a story.
So I have no idea.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Keep in mind that the setting for SATAM was super fucking dark. Most children’s shows don’t start with the premise “so the bad guys have won, life is a hellhole”
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
On the one hand, now that Sonic as a franchise has been around for decades, has a more established vision, and has people working on it who grew up with the franchise the setting is a lot more faithful to the games. On the other hand, we don't get the same experience of writers throwing all sorts of weird concepts into this mostly unestablished world that happened with the early Archie comics, nor do we get to see the process of newblood trying to reconcile all the weird stuff established earlier in the comics with the material Sega itself has established over time in the games.
However, said comics have been featuring on a story arc that is basically "what if Roboticization had been more like a zombie plague?"
I sorta wish I had a collection of all the pre-reboot Archie, post-reboot Archie, and IDW comics just to compare them.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
On the one hand, now that Sonic as a franchise has been around for decades and has a more established vision as set by the games the setting is more faithful. On the other hand, we don't get the same experience of writers throwing all sorts of weird concepts into a mostly blank world.
However, said comics have been featuring on a story arc that is basically "what if Roboticization had been more like a zombie plague?"
That’s basically the idea I had in the fourth grade for my sonic fan art.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
BTW, somewhere between issue 25 and issue 50 Archie published the names of everyone who had sent fan letters in by that point.
I bring this up because my name is in one of those issues!
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Dang that’s awesome! I never did send in a fan letter, was too intimidated by Spaz’s art.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
And for those interested, longtime head Sonic comic writer Ian Flynn has a podcast called BumbleKast where he talks a lot about the comics. There's one episode where Ian isn't present but his wife fills-in (who I think also works or worked on the comics) and goes on about an hour long rant about Ken Penders.
Dang that’s awesome! I never did send in a fan letter, was too intimidated by Spaz’s art.
I sent in ideas for new characters, too. I think one was "Chaos Spirit", another was Knuckles' brother, and I'm pretty sure the last was a prehistoric Mobian?
Part of me wonders if certain characters that appeared soon after were inspired by my submission, but probably not.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Dang that’s awesome! I never did send in a fan letter, was too intimidated by Spaz’s art.
I sent in ideas for new characters, too. I think one was "Chaos Spirit", another was Knuckles' brother, and I'm pretty sure the last was a prehistoric Mobian?
Part of me wonders if certain characters that appeared soon after were inspired by my submission, but probably not.
My idea was for a virus or machine that would mutate the characters into sorta hulked out or blanka’d out versions of themselves.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with future Sonic himself being one of the only people who realized his children had been erased from the fabric of space-time, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
The roboticized humans part was super dark. Robotnik was all like "Hope you guys enjoy living in Robotropolis! BTW, you've at this point all been exposed to incredibly high levels of pollution that will certainly kill you soon unless you let me turn you into robots."
I never read any of the post-reboot Archie Sonic comics. Were they at least a little less dark?
Most I know about them is that they redesigned the Freedom Fighters to fit in better with the designs of characters from the games, brought in reimagined versions of characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that it essentially ended with a gigantic Sega and Capcom team-up against Sigma from Mega Man X.
Oh man, what a conversation to have when I'm not around...
Okay, for one thing, I'm pretty sure the roboticized humans were confirmed as having been melted down into radioactive slag when Station Square nuked Robotropolis.
Fortunately, most were rescued and relocated to SS prior. Offhand, I think the only confirmed roboticized humans were Eggman's brother, Colin, his mother-in-law, and their group's scientific advisor. Oh, and Nate Morgan, who sacrificed himself to that fate so the others could escape.
Post-reboot would be less dark, in my opinion. Closer to the tone of the games, there are serious moments, but nothing quite on the level of what came before. Not really Flynn's style.
That said, it did not end with Worlds Unite, but it didn't last too much longer. At least it reached something of a resolution before whatever happened happened.
Bobby of Thanks, Ken Penders has finally gotten back to reviewing the Archie Sonic comics and she's gotten to something I had no idea about that is super fucked up.
So: Charmy has appeared regularly in the Archie comics since the release of Knuckles’ Chaotix in the ‘90s, and back then Sega said he was a teenager, like his friends. So that’s what Archie Charmy had always been. But when the Chaotix were reinvented for Sonic Heroes, Sega retconned Charmy’s age and made him a 6-year old. This discrepancy has always been a problem for new readers. For instance, when it was established that Charmy had a fiancee (Saffron), I got a lot of confused comments from people who thought he was supposed to be 6. In his efforts to tidy up the Archieverse and make things more closely resemble the modern games, Ian decided to fix this inconsistency with Charmy, and this moment is the catalyst for that change
So now Charmy basically has brain damage from the Egg Grape so that he can act like the airheaded little kid he is in the games
Is this bad? Yes. This is a very bad way to do this. It’s hard to argue that functionally aging a character down through brain damage isn’t ableist. But… people have (rightfully) criticized this plot point for years. And unlike certain other writers, Ian has already apologized for this many times, saying he would have done things very differently if he were to go back and rewrite the Archie comics. It’s worth mentioning since we’ve reached this moment, but I don’t really feel like I need to give Ian too much shit for it when he’d already apologized long before I even started this blog.
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with future Sonic himself being one of the only people who realized his children had been erased from the fabric of space-time, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
I never read any of the post-reboot Archie Sonic comics. Were they at least a little less dark?
Most I know about them is that they brought in reimagined versions of characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and that it essentially ended with a gigantic Sega and Capcom team-up against Sigma from Mega Man X.
I believe the last Archie comic I ever read is an apparently infamous Super Special issue that is 90% words on a blank white or black void that no artist or writer wanting credit for doing, and I found out years later, thanks to Bobby, that that issue also dealt with Ixis Naugus, which was absolutely not clearly indicated by that travesty of a story.
So I have no idea.
That was waaaaaaaaay before the reboot, by around 200 issues or so. Closer to 50, I believe, so divide by 8... I want to say in the ballpark of 16 years prior?
Anyway, that story was a crime. They managed to make some good on it many years later with a Free Comic Book Day special that retold the story -- with illustrations this time -- when Naugus made a comeback.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
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JimothyNot in front of the foxhe's with the owlRegistered Userregular
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited July 2020
It definitely helps that Shadow's gun is some kind of make-believe weapon, and not just a 9mm Glock handgun, or an HK MP5 smg, like some of the other guns he can use in his own game. Giving a Sonic character a blaster isn't a problem. But it's jarringly out of place to give them a close analog of a modern real-world firearm. Also pistol scopes are silly, unless it's like the one in Halo that has a digital camera feeding to a visor display, so they can hold the pistol normally and still see through it.
And while I know the Sonic render is from Sonic and the Black Knight, I can't help but think that he'd probably be better served with a light-weight curved sword, like a saber or katana, that he could slash at an opponent as he runs past, something a heavy straight blade like that broadsword he has is ill-suited for.
at the Xbox event, they announced New Genesis: Phantasy Star Online 2, and didn't explain at all what it meant or was.
Here's what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbQCZ2j5nZE
A huge free update/expansion that basically adds a whole new game to PSO2. It's got it's own separate graphics and gameplay engine, along with removing PSO2's small instanced zones for large open worlds. Both PSO2 and New Genesis will be playable with the same character, they're treating them as basically separate games that you can share your character and cosmetics with, however progression and currencies are not shared.
It feels like what Path of Exile is doing, they're releasing Path of Exile 2 next year, aka PoE 4.0, which is a massive update that adds a brand new campaign to the game where you play as new characters. It's explicitly a sequel, but is part of the original game.
I find it interesting it’s not ‘3’. It seems clear they want to keep the fans who have been devoted to that particular game where most would see such an upgrade as a sequel.
Since it looks like nothing really carries over though, I’d be interested to hear why it’s not a new game.
If they don't carry over the cosmetics from old PSO2 there will be a riot, there's a ton of them and all cosmetics originate from a very expensive real money gacha system. PSO2 literally just launched this year in north america and has been busily bilking people out of hundreds of dollars on the fashion slot machine.
PSO2 coming to a PC platform that actually works, August 5th
EDIT: And according to a dev of PSO Tweaker, it will allow you to link your Steam account to your already existing PSO2 progress so you don't need to start over, and the Tweaker will support the Steam version if you want an alternate launcher
Whether or not it will be localized or even playable internationally, no idea. But at least they gave us a full-length anime episode as a promo video (with a sequence I wasn't expecting at all around the 17-minute mark).
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I like her design way more than the one for the actual console game...
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So update on this, 2mello deleted the tweet because apparently the guy in question is a shithead and maybe not a credible source
Sigh
So, to recap, in the canon of the pre-reboot Archie comics Charmy Bee watched his friend Mello die of an LSD overdose, he left to become ruler of the Golden Hive Kingdom only for Robotnik to later complete destroy it, and finally the heroes attempt to save Charmy after he and most of the rest of the cast have been captured by Robotnik only for him to come away with permanent brain damage.
Dammmmmmn.
Archie Sonic skews dark.
A lot.
One of the stories involved Sonic being sent to a Gulag for regicide.
Archie Sonic started off with the crew that created the ALF tie-in comic and was super goofy, then started mixing more serious stories inspired by Sonic SATAM in with the goofy stuff, got really dark and serious with the supposed finale in the lead-up to issue 50 because they thought the book was going to be cancelled, and once the book kept going anyway the vast majority of the goofy shit vanished, allowing scattered really dark moments like Dulcy the Dragon getting into a relationship with a physically abusive male dragon or a possible future where Sonic and Sally got married and had kids being erased from existence with forty-year-old future Sonic himself being one of the only people who remembers the alternate timeline, leaving him a homeless and depressed wreck who mourns for children who never existed.
I had been playing for months because it really entertained a friend of mine and I was going to hang up the controller having accomplished regularly getting to Joker using two lives to beat him, so this was a last hurrah run and I downed half a solo cup of whiskey and had finished the game right when it started to hit.
Also as it turns out Batman just straight up murders the Joker at the end of the NES game. Batman just pitches him off the belfry.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
Let’s hang on a bit of the established canon for a second.
Roboticized Mobians were fully conscious after they were roboticized. They just couldn’t do anything about it. So they had to watch, prisoners in their own minds, as they betrayed their friends and family and did horrible acts.
Also the humans who got roboticized and then nuked are presumably still ‘alive’ and staring at nothing until the end of time. Unable to move, unable to do anything but stare. For eternity.
The roboticized humans part was super dark. Robotnik was all like "Hope you guys enjoy living in Robotropolis! BTW, you've at this point all been exposed to incredibly high levels of pollution that will certainly kill you soon unless you let me turn you into robots."
I never read any of the post-reboot Archie Sonic comics. Were they at least a little less dark?
Most I know about them is that they redesigned the Freedom Fighters to fit in better with the designs of characters from the games, brought in reimagined versions of characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that it essentially ended with a gigantic Sega and Capcom team-up against Sigma from Mega Man X.
I believe the last Archie comic I ever read is an apparently infamous Super Special issue that is 90% words on a blank white or black void that no artist or writer wanting credit for doing, and I found out years later, thanks to Bobby, that that issue also dealt with Ixis Naugus, which was absolutely not clearly indicated by that travesty of a story.
So I have no idea.
On the one hand, now that Sonic as a franchise has been around for decades, has a more established vision, and has people working on it who grew up with the franchise the setting is a lot more faithful to the games. On the other hand, we don't get the same experience of writers throwing all sorts of weird concepts into this mostly unestablished world that happened with the early Archie comics, nor do we get to see the process of newblood trying to reconcile all the weird stuff established earlier in the comics with the material Sega itself has established over time in the games.
However, said comics have been featuring on a story arc that is basically "what if Roboticization had been more like a zombie plague?"
I sorta wish I had a collection of all the pre-reboot Archie, post-reboot Archie, and IDW comics just to compare them.
That’s basically the idea I had in the fourth grade for my sonic fan art.
I bring this up because my name is in one of those issues!
I sent in ideas for new characters, too. I think one was "Chaos Spirit", another was Knuckles' brother, and I'm pretty sure the last was a prehistoric Mobian?
Part of me wonders if certain characters that appeared soon after were inspired by my submission, but probably not.
My idea was for a virus or machine that would mutate the characters into sorta hulked out or blanka’d out versions of themselves.
Oh man, what a conversation to have when I'm not around...
Okay, for one thing, I'm pretty sure the roboticized humans were confirmed as having been melted down into radioactive slag when Station Square nuked Robotropolis.
Fortunately, most were rescued and relocated to SS prior. Offhand, I think the only confirmed roboticized humans were Eggman's brother, Colin, his mother-in-law, and their group's scientific advisor. Oh, and Nate Morgan, who sacrificed himself to that fate so the others could escape.
Post-reboot would be less dark, in my opinion. Closer to the tone of the games, there are serious moments, but nothing quite on the level of what came before. Not really Flynn's style.
That said, it did not end with Worlds Unite, but it didn't last too much longer. At least it reached something of a resolution before whatever happened happened.
That was waaaaaaaaay before the reboot, by around 200 issues or so. Closer to 50, I believe, so divide by 8... I want to say in the ballpark of 16 years prior?
Anyway, that story was a crime. They managed to make some good on it many years later with a Free Comic Book Day special that retold the story -- with illustrations this time -- when Naugus made a comeback.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
And while I know the Sonic render is from Sonic and the Black Knight, I can't help but think that he'd probably be better served with a light-weight curved sword, like a saber or katana, that he could slash at an opponent as he runs past, something a heavy straight blade like that broadsword he has is ill-suited for.
Here's what it is:
A huge free update/expansion that basically adds a whole new game to PSO2. It's got it's own separate graphics and gameplay engine, along with removing PSO2's small instanced zones for large open worlds. Both PSO2 and New Genesis will be playable with the same character, they're treating them as basically separate games that you can share your character and cosmetics with, however progression and currencies are not shared.
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
It feels like what Path of Exile is doing, they're releasing Path of Exile 2 next year, aka PoE 4.0, which is a massive update that adds a brand new campaign to the game where you play as new characters. It's explicitly a sequel, but is part of the original game.
Since it looks like nothing really carries over though, I’d be interested to hear why it’s not a new game.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
PSO2 coming to a PC platform that actually works, August 5th
EDIT: And according to a dev of PSO Tweaker, it will allow you to link your Steam account to your already existing PSO2 progress so you don't need to start over, and the Tweaker will support the Steam version if you want an alternate launcher
buddy of mine did a pretty rad-ass cover of the karaoke classic
It's literally the open-world areas from Warframe.
https://sakura-kakumei.sega.jp
https://www.dualshockers.com/sakura-kakumei-reveal-sega-delightworks/
Whether or not it will be localized or even playable internationally, no idea. But at least they gave us a full-length anime episode as a promo video (with a sequence I wasn't expecting at all around the 17-minute mark).
There better be an entire episode dedicated to forklift racing.
follow-up